From stathisp at gmail.com  Fri Dec  1 00:28:04 2017
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2017 11:28:04 +1100
Subject: [ExI] Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-ontsqwOFv5mAuQjjcmca+wMJe4jn3hMtCQ0eCh6-yN_AUA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkNqbEZUOCS_j7rg5K5kcDHg2wX2wphYwyLPEiHS-nV8kA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-ontsqwOFv5mAuQjjcmca+wMJe4jn3hMtCQ0eCh6-yN_AUA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAH=2ypW8oySW6zMe1mzE83KH3bQhu3E1qmpwNWXYycJ70iK7YQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 1 December 2017 at 07:38, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wow, exciting news Jeff, thanks for letting us know about all that.
>
> I'd be interested to know how many people here think Ether, or any other
> crypto currency, will vastly outgrow Bitcoin durring the next few years.
>

On the face of it Ethereum has vastly more potential utility than Bitcoin
but there is only a loose link between utility of the Ethereum network and
value of Ether, the Ethereum token.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Dec  1 11:57:11 2017
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2017 06:57:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics Alexandre Erler and bad philosophy
In-Reply-To: <CAJX-7wXmPx02LK3ub=nBqHheHyvffxahKHn9eAA8BioQgPBkdA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv34JwtFg5RhB=RYmQNyc2fs_hT1qXRk9hDopbyVgqC0AQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhEz4PPjc-5Mhq7pk9MYVPgDFXAVfb+OfqvGkz8Bw1Etg@mail.gmail.com>
 <00ba01d36723$76cf74e0$646e5ea0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv1xivaP+tC01c8dxp+Bj95MK5B84GdEuATZzG2kvkTPZQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJX-7wVDj_fKnyPmfEFwO3K3fnFJkXSmmDXvjOScq1Q9jn=FQg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3w-OHegnbeD9CZhr3T2KRk5wQrxXCgasdYbp9k4AhFKg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJX-7wXmPx02LK3ub=nBqHheHyvffxahKHn9eAA8BioQgPBkdA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjTGnocYTQpwYV=QD4Ru8pjwZRHwGnjfBMCDv_uB7TnVw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 10:32 PM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:


>  On a related matter, it's clear to me that there is a major divide here
> between those who find it essential to be revived in their biological
> bodies and those who believe they will survive just as well in software
> emulations. I'm in the latter camp but, in my position, must take fully
> into account a great many people in the first camp.
>

### Indeed, this seems to be the heart of the issue here. People like you,
John and I have no philosophical problems with uploading but there is a
substantial number of biology-oriented cryonicists who do, and this leads
to different attitudes about preservation techniques. As the perennial
identity thread on our list shows, it may be very difficult to achieve
agreement between the two camps.

Luckily, these philosophical quibbles need not cause a split in the
cryonics community - simple vitrification and ASC (which is also a form of
vitrification) can be integrated in the same suspension workflow, with
relatively minor increase in cost. We uploaders could share the dewars with
the biologicals and let the godlike AIs of the future handle the details.

If you offer an ASC option as a rider on my contract, even at a higher
cost, I'll sign up. Consider doing a poll online and in the Cryonics
magazine to find how many cryonicists would follow my example.

Rafal
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Dec  1 15:16:19 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2017 10:16:19 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Cryonics Alexandre Erler and bad philosophy
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFjTGnocYTQpwYV=QD4Ru8pjwZRHwGnjfBMCDv_uB7TnVw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv34JwtFg5RhB=RYmQNyc2fs_hT1qXRk9hDopbyVgqC0AQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhEz4PPjc-5Mhq7pk9MYVPgDFXAVfb+OfqvGkz8Bw1Etg@mail.gmail.com>
 <00ba01d36723$76cf74e0$646e5ea0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv1xivaP+tC01c8dxp+Bj95MK5B84GdEuATZzG2kvkTPZQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJX-7wVDj_fKnyPmfEFwO3K3fnFJkXSmmDXvjOScq1Q9jn=FQg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3w-OHegnbeD9CZhr3T2KRk5wQrxXCgasdYbp9k4AhFKg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJX-7wXmPx02LK3ub=nBqHheHyvffxahKHn9eAA8BioQgPBkdA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFjTGnocYTQpwYV=QD4Ru8pjwZRHwGnjfBMCDv_uB7TnVw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3-291J_MSOHk0squMGJk0SLC9cwg8rJpAdJhhXko=+tw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 6:57 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
> wrote:

?> ?
> simple vitrification and ASC (which is also a form of vitrification) can
> be integrated in the same suspension workflow, with relatively minor
> increase in cost. We uploaders could share the dewars with the biologicals
> and let the godlike AIs of the future handle the details.
>

That would
? ?
be
? ?
the obvious solution. I keep waiting for somebody to give
? ?
me
? ?
a practical reason why ASC can't be carried out on a large scale,
? ?
but
? ?
I
? ?
haven't heard one, the only objection to ASC that I've heard
? ?
comes
? ?
not from chemistry, biology, physics or even economics but from
? ?
bad philosophy
?, REALLY bad philosophy?
as
? ?
can be seen
? ?
in the current issue of Cryonics magazine,
? ?
disjointed
? ?
philosophical
? ?
musings
? ?
so bad
? ?
they
? ?
could very well turn out to be downright lethal. Its the sort of thing that
gives philosophy a bad name.

If cryonicists
? ?
want to survive they're going to have to be ruthlessly rational and
logical. The specter of vitalism, which should have die
?d?
400 years ago but didn't, has come back and it could kill us. Maybe there
is a real reason against ASC that I don't know and if so I'd like to be
educated, but I've
?heard?
 enough bilge about
?the mighty?
 ORIGINAL (whatever that means)
? ?
and how that an
?d?
only that
? ?
biological body contains
? ?
a mysterious life...force..., or a
? ?
mysterious ... something, that the scientific method can't detect.
?
If I thought that mysterious something actually existed I'd forget all
about Cryonics and just do what almost everybody else does when confronted
with mortality, go for the standard religious mumbo jumbo snake oil.

?> ?
> If you offer an ASC option as a rider on my contract, even at a higher
> cost, I'll sign up.
>

?ME TOO! Just show me where to sign my name.

 John K Clark?



>
>
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From mrjones2020 at gmail.com  Fri Dec  1 18:28:12 2017
From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (J.R. Jones)
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2017 18:28:12 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
In-Reply-To: <CAH=2ypW8oySW6zMe1mzE83KH3bQhu3E1qmpwNWXYycJ70iK7YQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkNqbEZUOCS_j7rg5K5kcDHg2wX2wphYwyLPEiHS-nV8kA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-ontsqwOFv5mAuQjjcmca+wMJe4jn3hMtCQ0eCh6-yN_AUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH=2ypW8oySW6zMe1mzE83KH3bQhu3E1qmpwNWXYycJ70iK7YQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CADDVf2KZ2WJthNFJz4xFB=hshf4X2em+tvueEiY3evwL0TsKMQ@mail.gmail.com>

Cardano (ADA) is the up n comer, set up to dethrone Eth, and possibly BTC.
BTC is more suited for storage of wealth, not for day to day transactions.
ADA is going to blow up. It recently went 4-5x, and it's got WAY more to
go.

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 19:31 Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1 December 2017 at 07:38, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Wow, exciting news Jeff, thanks for letting us know about all that.
>>
>> I'd be interested to know how many people here think Ether, or any other
>> crypto currency, will vastly outgrow Bitcoin durring the next few years.
>>
>
> On the face of it Ethereum has vastly more potential utility than Bitcoin
> but there is only a loose link between utility of the Ethereum network and
> value of Ether, the Ethereum token.
>
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From zoielsoy at gmail.com  Fri Dec  1 18:57:03 2017
From: zoielsoy at gmail.com (Angel Z. Lopez)
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2017 18:57:03 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
In-Reply-To: <CADDVf2KZ2WJthNFJz4xFB=hshf4X2em+tvueEiY3evwL0TsKMQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkNqbEZUOCS_j7rg5K5kcDHg2wX2wphYwyLPEiHS-nV8kA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-ontsqwOFv5mAuQjjcmca+wMJe4jn3hMtCQ0eCh6-yN_AUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH=2ypW8oySW6zMe1mzE83KH3bQhu3E1qmpwNWXYycJ70iK7YQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CADDVf2KZ2WJthNFJz4xFB=hshf4X2em+tvueEiY3evwL0TsKMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALHxhTS=Y0SyhARuZ4-u2ucqrgs8+Ak0ssG14yiPRQOGZ623NA@mail.gmail.com>

What is everyone?s opinions on Litecoin and how successful they will be in
the near future with developing projects?

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 1:31 PM J.R. Jones <mrjones2020 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Cardano (ADA) is the up n comer, set up to dethrone Eth, and possibly BTC.
> BTC is more suited for storage of wealth, not for day to day transactions.
> ADA is going to blow up. It recently went 4-5x, and it's got WAY more to
> go.
>
> On Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 19:31 Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 1 December 2017 at 07:38, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Wow, exciting news Jeff, thanks for letting us know about all that.
>>>
>>> I'd be interested to know how many people here think Ether, or any other
>>> crypto currency, will vastly outgrow Bitcoin durring the next few years.
>>>
>>
>> On the face of it Ethereum has vastly more potential utility than Bitcoin
>> but there is only a loose link between utility of the Ethereum network and
>> value of Ether, the Ethereum token.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 mrjones2020 at gmail.com  Fri Dec  1 21:57:07 2017
From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (J.R. Jones)
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2017 21:57:07 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
In-Reply-To: <CALHxhTS=Y0SyhARuZ4-u2ucqrgs8+Ak0ssG14yiPRQOGZ623NA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkNqbEZUOCS_j7rg5K5kcDHg2wX2wphYwyLPEiHS-nV8kA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-ontsqwOFv5mAuQjjcmca+wMJe4jn3hMtCQ0eCh6-yN_AUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH=2ypW8oySW6zMe1mzE83KH3bQhu3E1qmpwNWXYycJ70iK7YQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CADDVf2KZ2WJthNFJz4xFB=hshf4X2em+tvueEiY3evwL0TsKMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALHxhTS=Y0SyhARuZ4-u2ucqrgs8+Ak0ssG14yiPRQOGZ623NA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CADDVf2Jh8D4nKjtzB6nuMBUUhgofK2W3vf=XBvL775CQYvLuww@mail.gmail.com>

Litecoin is a VERY SOLID project. It's not as exciting as some other coins,
but it's a reliable investment/gamble (however you view the cryptocurrency
space).
Extremely fast network. Low fees. Much more suitable for daily transactions
than BTC.

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017, 13:59 Angel Z. Lopez <zoielsoy at gmail.com> wrote:

> What is everyone?s opinions on Litecoin and how successful they will be in
> the near future with developing projects?
>
> On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 1:31 PM J.R. Jones <mrjones2020 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Cardano (ADA) is the up n comer, set up to dethrone Eth, and possibly BTC.
>> BTC is more suited for storage of wealth, not for day to day
>> transactions. ADA is going to blow up. It recently went 4-5x, and it's got
>> WAY more to go.
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 19:31 Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 1 December 2017 at 07:38, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Wow, exciting news Jeff, thanks for letting us know about all that.
>>>>
>>>> I'd be interested to know how many people here think Ether, or any
>>>> other crypto currency, will vastly outgrow Bitcoin durring the next few
>>>> years.
>>>>
>>>
>>> On the face of it Ethereum has vastly more potential utility than
>>> Bitcoin but there is only a loose link between utility of the Ethereum
>>> network and value of Ether, the Ethereum token.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From brent.allsop at gmail.com  Fri Dec  1 22:04:33 2017
From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2017 15:04:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
In-Reply-To: <CADDVf2KZ2WJthNFJz4xFB=hshf4X2em+tvueEiY3evwL0TsKMQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkNqbEZUOCS_j7rg5K5kcDHg2wX2wphYwyLPEiHS-nV8kA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAK7-ontsqwOFv5mAuQjjcmca+wMJe4jn3hMtCQ0eCh6-yN_AUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH=2ypW8oySW6zMe1mzE83KH3bQhu3E1qmpwNWXYycJ70iK7YQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CADDVf2KZ2WJthNFJz4xFB=hshf4X2em+tvueEiY3evwL0TsKMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-onudAmuY=hEtOxpCyXFe-bC10O4RvUbEREjAgSJjA6-t2Q@mail.gmail.com>

Cardano, interesting. I haven't really heard of that.


What are their governance policies?

I don?t see they have any single genius guy at the top (Vitalic Buterin),
like Linus Torvalds, that everyone will follow, no matter what.  Because
Bitcoin lacks this is why they can?t make any decisions.

What is their inflation or new coin policy?

Ether has a huge eco system including the Etherium Alliance with hundreds
of big company members/supporters.

I don't see any evidence that Cardano has anything even close to this?

Even if Cardano comes up with some new technology that is great, what is to
stop the Huge Etherium Alliance to just easly adopt it?  I.E. At least
Cardano doesn?t use POW (proof of waist?), but unlike Bitcoin, Ether is in
the process of abandoning POW.



In reply to Angel?s question about Litecoin, I?m not aware of any evidence
that they have anything significantly better than Bitcoin.



On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 11:28 AM, J.R. Jones <mrjones2020 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Cardano (ADA) is the up n comer, set up to dethrone Eth, and possibly BTC.
> BTC is more suited for storage of wealth, not for day to day transactions.
> ADA is going to blow up. It recently went 4-5x, and it's got WAY more to
> go.
>
> On Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 19:31 Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 1 December 2017 at 07:38, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Wow, exciting news Jeff, thanks for letting us know about all that.
>>>
>>> I'd be interested to know how many people here think Ether, or any other
>>> crypto currency, will vastly outgrow Bitcoin durring the next few years.
>>>
>>
>> On the face of it Ethereum has vastly more potential utility than Bitcoin
>> but there is only a loose link between utility of the Ethereum network and
>> value of Ether, the Ethereum token.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Dec  5 13:20:20 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2017 07:20:20 -0600
Subject: [ExI] long live ldl
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbyWHSgDmhHpwqY=6p3gHzmgXnvuRdqh+vh1RouPsb+dw@mail.gmail.com>

A renowned cholesterol skeptic and author of *The Cholesterol Myths*
<https://www.amazon.com/Cholesterol-Myths-Exposing-Fallacy-Saturated/dp/0967089700/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512439762&sr=8-1&keywords=the+cholesterol+myths>,
Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, wrote this on our website on April 18, 2017:

?The Repatha trial was originally planned to go on for 4 years, but as the
number of heart events was significantly lower in the treatment group
already after 26 months, the authors decided to stop the trial.

?But the number of deaths, both from heart disease and from other causes,
had increased! Not with statistical significance, but it might have become
significant if the trial had continued. A relevant question is therefore:
Did they stop the trial because the total number of events had become
significantly lower in the treatment group, or because the number of deaths
was increasing?

?How do they explain that 444 died in the treatment group, but only 426
among the untreated? I mean, if ?bad? high LDL-cholesterol was the cause of
atherosclerosis and heart disease, then we should expect that a 59%
lowering of this ?poisonous? molecule should lower mortality, not increase
it.

?The reason is of course that a high level of LDL-cholesterol is not
poisonous; it is beneficial, as we have documented in a review of 19
studies including more than 68,000 people above the age of 60 published in *BMJ
Open* <http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/6/6/e010401.full.pdf>(
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/6/6/e010401.full.pdf). Almost all
studies found that elderly people with the highest levels of the ?bad?
LDL-cholesterol live the longest; even longer than those on statin
treatment; no study found the opposite. A reasonable question is therefore:
Why should we lower the bad cholesterol if those with the highest values
live the longest??
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Wed Dec  6 01:04:40 2017
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2017 17:04:40 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Anders
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB6RFT9Ak33YJtu9HtnsNX3bbWZ9P53mGADvYCCbXftJ4Q@mail.gmail.com>

https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/ethics/the-ethics-of-using-brain-implants-to-upgrade-yourself

Always nice to see a friend in your trade journal.

Keith


From spike66 at att.net  Thu Dec  7 02:10:23 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 18:10:23 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
Message-ID: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>

 

 

DeepMind, the same outfit which made the learning Go program is now claiming
they did the same trick with chess.  I don't know if I believe it (rather I
vaguely do not believe it) but it is being reported on a very reliable chess
site:

 

https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-future-is-here-alphazero-learns-chess

 

They are claiming that it learned from only the rules of chess in 24 hours.
I just don't see how it could have mastered the collective human experience
over more than 500 years in 24 hours.

 

If Deep Mind really did this, it's the most impressive computer learning
feat I have ever seen.

 

spike

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 15:15:38 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 10:15:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 9:10 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> ?> ?
> DeepMind, the same outfit which made the learning Go program is now
> claiming they did the same trick with chess.  I don?t know if I believe it
> (rather I vaguely do not believe it) but it is being reported on a very
> reliable chess site:
>
> https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-future-is-here-alphazero-learns-chess
>
> They are claiming that it learned from only the rules of chess in 24
> hours.  I just don?t see how it could have mastered the collective human
> experience over more than 500 years in 24 hours.
>
> If Deep Mind really did this, it?s the most impressive computer learning
> feat I have ever seen.
>
You're
? ?
right Spike
?it's?
 simply amazing! Imagine, you know nothing about Chess, you're not given a
teacher, your no
?t?
even given a book on Chess, all you're given is is a short pamphlet
explaining the rules of the game, and
??
24  hours later you can not only beat any other person on the planet at
Chess but you also can beat any other Chess program. I don't see how anyone
can say computers aren't really intelligent now. And
?
AlphaGo
? ?
beat the other Chess program, the one that
?was ?
taught by humans, even though it was running on more powerful hardware.
But the most impressive thing of all it it's versatility, the same generic
program taught itself to to be world champion in GO
?,?
Chess and
?S?
hogi (Japanese chess)
? ?
in a day.

I wonder what the next target will be, I had thought solving
?the ?
Protein Folding
?Problem
 would require a Quantum Computer but maybe not. The shapes of a few
hundred proteins are
?known?
, discovered?
by means of
?very ?
laborious X-ray diffraction studies
?,?
 their Amino Acid sequence
? are of course also known;?
maybe to AlphaGo
? would treat that? as a pamphlet explaining the rules of the
Protein Folding
?game.? And if you ever hear that it's starting to treat optimizing
computer code as a game then you may be hearing the opening notes of the
Singularity. This is big.

 John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Dec  7 15:42:49 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 07:42:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2017 7:16 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

 

On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 9:10 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

?> ?

DeepMind, the same outfit which made the learning Go program is now claiming they did the same trick with chess.  I don?t know if I believe it (rather I vaguely do not believe it) but it is being reported on a very reliable chess site:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-future-is-here-alphazero-learns-chess

They are claiming that it learned from only the rules of chess in 24 hours.  I just don?t see how it could have mastered the collective human experience over more than 500 years in 24 hours.

If Deep Mind really did this, it?s the most impressive computer learning feat I have ever seen.

>?You're right Spike it's? simply amazing! 

 

I still haven?t convinced myself it is true.  I think highly of the source that reported it, but they can be fooled.  They played Stockfish, which is a very highly respected program with a lotta lotta programmed-in chess wisdom.  To figure out all that in a day requires some powerful inference activity.  John I am putting myself in the camp of hope it?s true, but estimate 70% chance it isn?t.  I don?t know how the hell they did this if true.

 

>?? And if you ever hear that it's starting to treat optimizing computer code as a game then you may be hearing the opening notes of the Singularity. This is big?John K Clark

 

Sure and is there any reason why we shouldn?t treat code optimization as a game?  It is a clearly-definable goal: we can set the task to give a known outcome, give it a time to beat and a memory allocation to beat, may the best machine win.  It?s one of those new sports I have been yakking about for years, a great example of geek Olympics.  

 

I want robot gymnastics too.  Whooda thunk that would just appear like it has?

 

http://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2017/11/17/atlas-boston-dynamics-robot-backflip-cnntech.cnnmoney

 

We could have a code-athlon, where the game is to write the best and most efficient code, then let computers play against each other and against humans.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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From interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 17:07:30 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 12:07:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH-dkM3eHQVqHv+yoT60nx24cg1BtHRixmpn5KuC6NRauw@mail.gmail.com>

Reinforcement learning has proven very powerful in AI.  I have no reason to
believe that they have not accomplished what they claimed.  These results
flow naturally from where the field has been headed, and is not the leap of
faith it first appears to be.  While I am excited to hear the results, and
am impressed,  it is still very brittle compared to generalized
intelligence IMO.   This type of program still needs to be trained on a
very specific problem, and while it is able to be generalized as a
technique, there is no thought process going on behind it.

The program is basically using a combination of deep learning neural nets
and survival of the fitness to replace the best player during simulation
training with any new one that beats the old one by greater than a certain
cutoff (I believe it was 55% in the paper).  You have a massive number of
iterations of simulated gameplay that are minimizing a loss function via
gradient descent (which in a perfect world finds a global minima) that is
keeping the training of the better player in each round.

There have been many remarkable things accomplished with
deep/reinformcement learning.   It's quite startling at first glance to
think that an end goal of minimizing a loss function can generate so much
razzle dazzle, but the math behind these systems is actually not that
complex.  It is essentially matrix multiplication combined with a nonlinear
activation function on the forward pass through a neural network, followed
by gradient descent using calculus to backfeed new weights throughout the
network, and then having the machine play many, many matches against
itself, rinse and repeat.

John-

You may find the ideas at this link interesting based on your last sentence:
https://medium.com/@karpathy/software-2-0-a64152b37c35



On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 10:42 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *John Clark
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 07, 2017 7:16 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 9:10 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> ?> ?
>
> DeepMind, the same outfit which made the learning Go program is now
> claiming they did the same trick with chess.  I don?t know if I believe it
> (rather I vaguely do not believe it) but it is being reported on a very
> reliable chess site:
>
> https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-future-is-here-alphazero-learns-chess
>
> They are claiming that it learned from only the rules of chess in 24
> hours.  I just don?t see how it could have mastered the collective human
> experience over more than 500 years in 24 hours.
>
> If Deep Mind really did this, it?s the most impressive computer learning
> feat I have ever seen.
>
> >?You're right Spike it's? simply amazing!
>
>
>
> I still haven?t convinced myself it is true.  I think highly of the source
> that reported it, but they can be fooled.  They played Stockfish, which is
> a very highly respected program with a lotta lotta programmed-in chess
> wisdom.  To figure out all that in a day requires some powerful inference
> activity.  John I am putting myself in the camp of hope it?s true, but
> estimate 70% chance it isn?t.  I don?t know how the hell they did this if
> true.
>
>
>
> >?? And if you ever hear that it's starting to treat optimizing computer
> code as a game then you may be hearing the opening notes of the
> Singularity. This is big?John K Clark
>
>
>
> Sure and is there any reason why we shouldn?t treat code optimization as a
> game?  It is a clearly-definable goal: we can set the task to give a known
> outcome, give it a time to beat and a memory allocation to beat, may the
> best machine win.  It?s one of those new sports I have been yakking about
> for years, a great example of geek Olympics.
>
>
>
> I want robot gymnastics too.  Whooda thunk that would just appear like it
> has?
>
>
>
> http://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2017/11/17/atlas-boston-dynamics-robot-
> backflip-cnntech.cnnmoney
>
>
>
> We could have a code-athlon, where the game is to write the best and most
> efficient code, then let computers play against each other and against
> humans.
>
>
>
> 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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 17:32:27 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 12:32:27 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 10:42 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:


> ?> ?
> They played Stockfish, which is a very highly respected program with a
> lotta lotta programmed-in chess wisdom.
>


?And out of 100 games when playing white ?
against Stockfish AlphaGo won 25 games, and when playing black it won 3
games, ?
AlphaGo
? lost no games, the remaining 72 games were ties.  And it learned how to
do this in less than a day. By the way, from these results i
t looks like having the first move i
?s?
a inherent advantage
? in Chess.?
?

?>?
> I still haven?t convinced myself it is true.


?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we haven't
seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ?

?And the hoax would involve a huge company like Google and that doesn't
seem very likely.?

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815v1.pdf

?John K Clark ?







> To figure out all that in a day requires some powerful inference
> activity.  John I am putting myself in the camp of hope it?s true, but
> estimate 70% chance it isn?t.  I don?t know how the hell they did this if
> true.
>
>
>
> >?? And if you ever hear that it's starting to treat optimizing computer
> code as a game then you may be hearing the opening notes of the
> Singularity. This is big?John K Clark
>
>
>
> Sure and is there any reason why we shouldn?t treat code optimization as a
> game?  It is a clearly-definable goal: we can set the task to give a known
> outcome, give it a time to beat and a memory allocation to beat, may the
> best machine win.  It?s one of those new sports I have been yakking about
> for years, a great example of geek Olympics.
>
>
>
> I want robot gymnastics too.  Whooda thunk that would just appear like it
> has?
>
>
>
> http://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2017/11/17/atlas-boston-dynamics-robot-
> backflip-cnntech.cnnmoney
>
>
>
> We could have a code-athlon, where the game is to write the best and most
> efficient code, then let computers play against each other and against
> humans.
>
>
>
> 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 dsunley at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 17:40:21 2017
From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 10:40:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEptUkRTFoEAn8RBJEwU35kTkC_g1gT3OPg4Ezh6w+0kbGoMHQ@mail.gmail.com>

Twenty years after the heyday of the peace movement in the 1960's, we were
in the middle of the 80's - Cash was King and Greed was Good. The entire
movement, right down to it's most basic ethical foundations, disappeared
without a trace.

And now here I am, on a mailing list 20 years after what was arguably the
heyday of the Extropian/Transhuman movement of the late 90's, reading a
article about an AI that learned to play chess at superhuman levels given
only a description of the rules at 24 hours of runtime.

That's the opposite of what happened to the hippies.

It's weird to watch the wildest speculatory dreams of a fringe movement
become true in realtime.

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 10:32 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 10:42 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>> ?> ?
>> They played Stockfish, which is a very highly respected program with a
>> lotta lotta programmed-in chess wisdom.
>>
>
>
> ?And out of 100 games when playing white ?
> against Stockfish AlphaGo won 25 games, and when playing black it won 3
> games, ?
> AlphaGo
> ? lost no games, the remaining 72 games were ties.  And it learned how to
> do this in less than a day. By the way, from these results i
> t looks like having the first move i
> ?s?
> a inherent advantage
> ? in Chess.?
> ?
>
> ?>?
>> I still haven?t convinced myself it is true.
>
>
> ?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we
> haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ?
>
> ?And the hoax would involve a huge company like Google and that doesn't
> seem very likely.?
>
> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815v1.pdf
>
> ?John K Clark ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> To figure out all that in a day requires some powerful inference
>> activity.  John I am putting myself in the camp of hope it?s true, but
>> estimate 70% chance it isn?t.  I don?t know how the hell they did this if
>> true.
>>
>>
>>
>> >?? And if you ever hear that it's starting to treat optimizing computer
>> code as a game then you may be hearing the opening notes of the
>> Singularity. This is big?John K Clark
>>
>>
>>
>> Sure and is there any reason why we shouldn?t treat code optimization as
>> a game?  It is a clearly-definable goal: we can set the task to give a
>> known outcome, give it a time to beat and a memory allocation to beat, may
>> the best machine win.  It?s one of those new sports I have been yakking
>> about for years, a great example of geek Olympics.
>>
>>
>>
>> I want robot gymnastics too.  Whooda thunk that would just appear like it
>> has?
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2017/11/17/atlas-boston-
>> dynamics-robot-backflip-cnntech.cnnmoney
>>
>>
>>
>> We could have a code-athlon, where the game is to write the best and most
>> efficient code, then let computers play against each other and against
>> humans.
>>
>>
>>
>> spike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Dec  7 17:55:00 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 09:55:00 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>

 

 

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



 

?>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true.

 

>?To figure out all that in a day requires some powerful inference activity.  John I am putting myself in the camp of hope it?s true, but estimate 70% chance it isn?t.  I don?t know how the hell they did this if true.

 

 

 

?

 

If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ?

 

?And the hoax would involve a huge company like Google and that doesn't seem very likely.?

 

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815v1.pdf

 

?John K Clark ?

 

 

 

 

 

Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t suspect an intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us.  For instance? if these games are speed chess, with a really short time limit such as 4 minutes total per game.  If so, I would call it plausible, but that is slightly different.  Reasoning: for those really short games the standard software doesn?t use the standard pruning techniques, the look at everything a certain number of plies.  

 

I suppose it is plausible a learning routine could get better at that high-speed stuff than the standard routines.  Speed chess doesn?t require the kinds of insights into the game that legions of humans have discovered in 5 centuries of play.  Those are highly tactical rather than strategic (the way top-ranked humans tend to play.)  Computers are crazy good at tactics.

 

However? I looked over some of those games they are claiming and it sure doesn?t look a bit like blitz chess to me.

 

So for now, I am going to hope for the best, keep my head in the clouds while keeping my feet on the ground.

 

spike

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Dec  7 17:57:49 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 09:57:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAEptUkRTFoEAn8RBJEwU35kTkC_g1gT3OPg4Ezh6w+0kbGoMHQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEptUkRTFoEAn8RBJEwU35kTkC_g1gT3OPg4Ezh6w+0kbGoMHQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <011801d36f84$e5e28430$b1a78c90$@att.net>

 

 

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



>?It's weird to watch the wildest speculatory dreams of a fringe movement become true in realtime.

 

 

 

 

Ain?t it cool to be living in 2017?  Oh my, so cool.  I thank evolution.  I would pray to evolution if just once in a while it would just pray back.

 

spike

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 18:29:46 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 13:29:46 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH-dkM3eHQVqHv+yoT60nx24cg1BtHRixmpn5KuC6NRauw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH-dkM3eHQVqHv+yoT60nx24cg1BtHRixmpn5KuC6NRauw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2JqmiA2xs-3CdpU7xrFqGT4EEcaaBUXvwVJmx8ibCRJw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 12:07 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:


> ?> ?
> This type of program still needs to be trained on a very specific problem,
>

?It trained itself and it started with nothing but the basic rules and was
able to beat the best in the world at it, human or machine, in one day
.
 And it didn't just do it with one problem it ?did it with 3 different
ones, Chess being the least complex.

?> ?
> there is no thought process going on behind it.
>

?That is a strange statement. ?

?If you can teach yourself to be the best in the world at some complex task
?without "thought" then what's the point of "thought"? Who needs it?

?> ?
> It's quite startling at first glance to think that an end goal of
> minimizing a loss function can generate so much razzle dazzle, but the math
> behind these systems is actually not that complex.
>

?But we know for a fact that the ?
recipe for a mind
? can't be very big, we must have that master learning algorithm so we can
put a upper limit on it.?
In the  human genome there are only 3 billion base pairs,
? ?
there are 4 bases so each base can represent 2 bits, there are 8 bits per
byte so that comes out to 750 meg.   And all that 750 meg certainly can not
? ?
be used just for the master learning software algorithm, you've got to
leave room for instructions on how to build a human body as well as the
brain hardware.  So the information
? ?must
 contain wiring directions such as "wire up
? ?
a neuron this way and then repeat that
? ?
procedure exactly the same way
? ?
42
? ?
billion times".
? ?
And the 750 meg isn't even efficiently coded, there is a ridiculous amount
of redundancy in the human genome.
? ?
I would guess
? ?
the
? ?
master
? ?
learning algorithm is less than a meg in size, possibly a lot less.

? John K Clark?
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From interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 19:02:03 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 14:02:03 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2JqmiA2xs-3CdpU7xrFqGT4EEcaaBUXvwVJmx8ibCRJw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH-dkM3eHQVqHv+yoT60nx24cg1BtHRixmpn5KuC6NRauw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2JqmiA2xs-3CdpU7xrFqGT4EEcaaBUXvwVJmx8ibCRJw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH-mOv3FgF4-Q54nbVuD60NmUQG_HOG3jZRc13B9ijO9xw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 1:29 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 12:07 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> ?> ?
>> This type of program still needs to be trained on a very specific problem,
>>
>
> ?It trained itself and it started with nothing but the basic rules and
> was able to beat the best in the world at it, human or machine, in one day
> .
>  And it didn't just do it with one problem it ?did it with 3 different
> ones, Chess being the least complex.
>

Again, reinforcement learning is very successful in certain scenarios,
particularly ones involving games.   This has been done with other things
like Super Mario Brothers, a popular video game where the system learns how
to play and what strategies work best to maximize a selected outcome.
These systems can be trained very quickly with enough hardware thrown at
training them, and the tech to train them scales very well in general if
architected properly.

I would still argue that this is very far from strong AI.



>
> ?> ?
>> there is no thought process going on behind it.
>>
>
> ?That is a strange statement. ?
>
> ?If you can teach yourself to be the best in the world at some complex
> task ?without "thought" then what's the point of "thought"? Who needs it?
>

It's not needed as I'm defining it (human level intelligence combined with
consciousness (whatever that is, but I think we're relatively good at
identifying it) for most species on the planet to thrive in their niches.
In fact, the odds of it evolving MAY be extremely low.  I will give you a
real world example of why these networks don't think, and why thought is
important.  I'm going to shift into image recognition for the example.
It is very easy to game these machine learning systems with an adversarial
attack that shifts pixel information that is essentially  undetectable to
the human eye but that will cause the system to misidentify a turtle as a
gun (for example).  These attacks BTW are likely to become a very large
problem as we rely more on machine learning behind infrastructure and
systems.  Once there is an incentive for these hacks, they will show up in
commercial places.

The image recognition is very accurate in general, but it is also very
brittle and subject to this type of gaming.  Thought would probably be
helpful in eliminating these false positives as it would allow to see
things in the larger context and ponder the most likely possibility based
on experience, and the ability to visualize scenarios ad hoc.  All the
system consists of is a series of probabilities output based on input
flowing across weights in a matrix.

These image recognition systems are variations on the deep learning
technology used here (minus the reinforcement learning).

The point of thought is to be able to generalize and make decisions with
sometimes very limited information based on experience and imagination.
This system is capable of nothing like that.   It is still very brittle
outside of the goal it has been trained on.  It would need to be retrained
for each new goal, and if you attempted to apply it to real life, you would
probably wind up with some very unexpected behaviors.


> ?> ?
>> It's quite startling at first glance to think that an end goal of
>> minimizing a loss function can generate so much razzle dazzle, but the math
>> behind these systems is actually not that complex.
>>
>
> ?But we know for a fact that the ?
> recipe for a mind
> ? can't be very big, we must have that master learning algorithm so we can
> put a upper limit on it.?
> In the  human genome there are only 3 billion base pairs,
> ? ?
> there are 4 bases so each base can represent 2 bits, there are 8 bits per
> byte so that comes out to 750 meg.   And all that 750 meg certainly can not
> ? ?
> be used just for the master learning software algorithm, you've got to
> leave room for instructions on how to build a human body as well as the
> brain hardware.  So the information
> ? ?must
>  contain wiring directions such as "wire up
> ? ?
> a neuron this way and then repeat that
> ? ?
> procedure exactly the same way
> ? ?
> 42
> ? ?
> billion times".
> ? ?
> And the 750 meg isn't even efficiently coded, there is a ridiculous amount
> of redundancy in the human genome.
> ? ?
> I would guess
> ? ?
> the
> ? ?
> master
> ? ?
> learning algorithm is less than a meg in size, possibly a lot less.
>
> ? John K Clark?
>

I don't think I disagree with you here, but I also think we're comparing
apples to oranges.  Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little
resemblance to how biological nervous systems actually work.
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Dec  7 18:53:08 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 10:53:08 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <01c801d36f8c$9fea66c0$dfbf3440$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

 

 

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

 

?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true.

 

 

?

 

>>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ?

?John K Clark ?

 

 

 

>?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t suspect an intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us?spike

 

 

Further clarification, since I want to make very clear I am not accusing the Alpha Zero guys of hoaxing us, nor am I accusing ChessNews of intentionally misleading reporting. 

 

The analogy is more like this: consider a time when something big happened and you were there, then the newspaper reported it.  You read the story as written and say oooooh no, that isn?t what happened there at all.  You read the facts, which are all correct as written, but it paints a very different story than what really took place.  The reporters weren?t there, they talked to some people, wrote it up the best they could, but it just wasn?t right.  

 

I suspect what we are seeing here is unintentionally misleading reporting, where there are some key aspects missing or accidentally reported incorrectly.  For instance, if the company somehow came into possession of a million nodes computing in parallel for a day, then collected the results.  The story was written by a chess guy who may or may not understand all the technical details.  

 

I think Alpha Zero is impressive as all hell, but I ha? me doots they somehow managed to get this much better than Stockfish in a day.  As written, I am confident there is something wrong or accidentally misleading, probably the use of massively parallel computing resources, or the use of a some known-good standard chess engine which was parameter-modified by the results of a massive-parallel effort.  Dunno.  Something is missing here.  Or accidentally overstated.

 

This is a heady trip for those of us into computer chess, for a good computer chess program teaches to play better chess ourselves.  As we program computers, computers program us.  

 

I welcome a detailed technical paper by the Alpha Zero people, then we compare the ChessNews article with the Alpha Zero paper.

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Dec  7 19:15:35 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 11:15:35 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net> 
Message-ID: <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>

 

 

From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2017 10:53 AM
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: RE: [ExI] alpha zero

 

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

 

 

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

 

?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true. spike

 

 

 

>>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ??John K Clark ?

 

 

 

>?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t suspect an intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us?spike

 

 

 

There is something else.  If someone writes a chess-playing program today that defeats the best effort of the best humans for 500 years, that has been done.  According to the article, what Alpha Zero has done is defeat the collective programming efforts of armies of professional programmers working with huge monetary rewards for the past 75 years, which is far more impressive than overpowering humans in chess.

 

Something is still not being told here methinks.

 

spike

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From interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 19:29:38 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 14:29:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <01c801d36f8c$9fea66c0$dfbf3440$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01c801d36f8c$9fea66c0$dfbf3440$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH9DzhCh9OGUbd5XEBg7-oss+Ha1d_tYz9kOHScz7we3WA@mail.gmail.com>

Spike-

There is a lot of detail in the paper.  Training was not done on excessive
hardware.  If I'm reading it right, it was done on one PC using 4 TPUs
(these are custom ASIC from Google that are very good at running Tensorflow
which is their flavor of deep learning infrastructure):

You can read more on what a TPU actually is here if you're interested, but
they're basically custom hardware that is good at running neural nets:
https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2017/05/an-in-depth-look-at-googles-first-tensor-processing-unit-tpu

It took 9 hours to train on 44 million different chess games.

If you were so inclined, you could lease 4 TPUs from Google via their cloud
platform and get similar results.  This is on freely available, relatively
modest hardware, not a supercomputer or a massively parallel architecture.

In fact, if you have a good gaming PC with a high end Nvidia GPU, you would
be surprised at what you can do out of the box with deep learning stuff.

Amazon Web Services also has easy plug and play stock deep learning linux
images paired with the highest end Nvidia GPUs that I have used to train my
own nets on.

The combination of easily available cloud based machine learning tools is
what is going to usher in the revolution in this space.  In addition,
Google is starting to allow a machine learning process automatically
generate the best iteration it can find of another machine learning
process.  It's called AutoML and is something to watch
https://research.googleblog.com/2017/05/using-machine-learning-to-explore.html
.

There is so much power available cheaply, and great open source
implementations of this type of technology just waiting for the next person
to get creative and have a breakthrough.


On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 1:53 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *spike
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *John Clark
>
>
>
> ?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true.
>
>
>
>
>
> ?
>
>
>
> >>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we
> haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ?
>
> ?John K Clark ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t suspect an
> intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us?spike
>
>
>
>
>
> Further clarification, since I want to make very clear I am not accusing
> the Alpha Zero guys of hoaxing us, nor am I accusing ChessNews of
> intentionally misleading reporting.
>
>
>
> The analogy is more like this: consider a time when something big happened
> and you were there, then the newspaper reported it.  You read the story as
> written and say oooooh no, that isn?t what happened there at all.  You read
> the facts, which are all correct as written, but it paints a very different
> story than what really took place.  The reporters weren?t there, they
> talked to some people, wrote it up the best they could, but it just wasn?t
> right.
>
>
>
> I suspect what we are seeing here is unintentionally misleading reporting,
> where there are some key aspects missing or accidentally reported
> incorrectly.  For instance, if the company somehow came into possession of
> a million nodes computing in parallel for a day, then collected the
> results.  The story was written by a chess guy who may or may not
> understand all the technical details.
>
>
>
> I think Alpha Zero is impressive as all hell, but I ha? me doots they
> somehow managed to get this much better than Stockfish in a day.  As
> written, I am confident there is something wrong or accidentally
> misleading, probably the use of massively parallel computing resources, or
> the use of a some known-good standard chess engine which was
> parameter-modified by the results of a massive-parallel effort.  Dunno.
> Something is missing here.  Or accidentally overstated.
>
>
>
> This is a heady trip for those of us into computer chess, for a good
> computer chess program teaches to play better chess ourselves.  As we
> program computers, computers program us.
>
>
>
> I welcome a detailed technical paper by the Alpha Zero people, then we
> compare the ChessNews article with the Alpha Zero paper.
>
>
>
> 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 interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 19:34:21 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 14:34:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>

I think you would be surprised at how little code is actually there if we
could see the source code.  Tensorflow does a lot of heavy lifting in terms
of abstracting neural nets, and the secret sauce in the recipe is the
trained weights of the net.  There is very little conventional code beyond
setting up the structure of the neural net and the reinforcement
objectives.  Training on 77 million simulated games is the key.

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:15 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net]
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 07, 2017 10:53 AM
> *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* RE: [ExI] alpha zero
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *spike
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *John Clark
>
>
>
> ?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true. spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we
> haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ??John K Clark ?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t suspect an
> intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us?spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is something else.  If someone writes a chess-playing program today
> that defeats the best effort of the best humans for 500 years, that has
> been done.  According to the article, what Alpha Zero has done is defeat
> the collective programming efforts of armies of professional programmers
> working with huge monetary rewards for the past 75 years, which is far more
> impressive than overpowering humans in chess.
>
>
>
> Something is still not being told here methinks.
>
>
>
> 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 interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 19:35:02 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 14:35:02 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH-hs2CTTCfjtyZ1u4mmGDQHu5sZMFwbVuPq+SgFO0=okQ@mail.gmail.com>

Sorry, that's 44 million simulated games...

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:34 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think you would be surprised at how little code is actually there if we
> could see the source code.  Tensorflow does a lot of heavy lifting in terms
> of abstracting neural nets, and the secret sauce in the recipe is the
> trained weights of the net.  There is very little conventional code beyond
> setting up the structure of the neural net and the reinforcement
> objectives.  Training on 77 million simulated games is the key.
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:15 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net]
>> *Sent:* Thursday, December 07, 2017 10:53 AM
>> *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> *Subject:* RE: [ExI] alpha zero
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *spike
>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *John Clark
>>
>>
>>
>> ?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true. spike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we
>> haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ??John K Clark ?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t suspect an
>> intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us?spike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> There is something else.  If someone writes a chess-playing program today
>> that defeats the best effort of the best humans for 500 years, that has
>> been done.  According to the article, what Alpha Zero has done is defeat
>> the collective programming efforts of armies of professional programmers
>> working with huge monetary rewards for the past 75 years, which is far more
>> impressive than overpowering humans in chess.
>>
>>
>>
>> Something is still not being told here methinks.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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 protokol2020 at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 20:01:55 2017
From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 21:01:55 +0100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>

Like spike, I also think something hasn't been told or at least something
hasn't been emphasized as it should be.

But if it's not today, it will be in a year or two. Doesn't really matter.
(What does matter, is that the Singularity is closer than ever.)

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 8:34 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think you would be surprised at how little code is actually there if we
> could see the source code.  Tensorflow does a lot of heavy lifting in terms
> of abstracting neural nets, and the secret sauce in the recipe is the
> trained weights of the net.  There is very little conventional code beyond
> setting up the structure of the neural net and the reinforcement
> objectives.  Training on 77 million simulated games is the key.
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:15 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net]
>> *Sent:* Thursday, December 07, 2017 10:53 AM
>> *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> *Subject:* RE: [ExI] alpha zero
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *spike
>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *John Clark
>>
>>
>>
>> ?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true. spike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we
>> haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ??John K Clark ?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t suspect an
>> intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us?spike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> There is something else.  If someone writes a chess-playing program today
>> that defeats the best effort of the best humans for 500 years, that has
>> been done.  According to the article, what Alpha Zero has done is defeat
>> the collective programming efforts of armies of professional programmers
>> working with huge monetary rewards for the past 75 years, which is far more
>> impressive than overpowering humans in chess.
>>
>>
>>
>> Something is still not being told here methinks.
>>
>>
>>
>> spike
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 
https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
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From interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 20:10:19 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 15:10:19 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>

The paper describes in detail how they did it and how long it took.  Again,
I see no reason to question any of it.  It's an evolutionary advance from
their work on Go, and is using established deep learning and reinforcement
techniques on powerful hardware (although not insanely powerful, 4 TPUs is
not unobtainium
https://www.blog.google/topics/google-cloud/google-cloud-offer-tpus-machine-learning/
).


On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 3:01 PM, Tomaz Kristan <protokol2020 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Like spike, I also think something hasn't been told or at least something
> hasn't been emphasized as it should be.
>
> But if it's not today, it will be in a year or two. Doesn't really matter.
> (What does matter, is that the Singularity is closer than ever.)
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 8:34 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I think you would be surprised at how little code is actually there if we
>> could see the source code.  Tensorflow does a lot of heavy lifting in terms
>> of abstracting neural nets, and the secret sauce in the recipe is the
>> trained weights of the net.  There is very little conventional code beyond
>> setting up the structure of the neural net and the reinforcement
>> objectives.  Training on 77 million simulated games is the key.
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:15 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net]
>>> *Sent:* Thursday, December 07, 2017 10:53 AM
>>> *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>>> *Subject:* RE: [ExI] alpha zero
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>>> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *spike
>>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>>> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *John Clark
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true. spike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> >>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we
>>> haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ??John K Clark ?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> >?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t suspect an
>>> intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us?spike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> There is something else.  If someone writes a chess-playing program
>>> today that defeats the best effort of the best humans for 500 years, that
>>> has been done.  According to the article, what Alpha Zero has done is
>>> defeat the collective programming efforts of armies of professional
>>> programmers working with huge monetary rewards for the past 75 years, which
>>> is far more impressive than overpowering humans in chess.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Something is still not being told here methinks.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> spike
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Thu Dec  7 21:11:14 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 13:11:14 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <01e101d36f8e$17f90030$47eb0090$@rainier66.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH-dkM3eHQVqHv+yoT60nx24cg1BtHRixmpn5KuC6NRauw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2JqmiA2xs-3CdpU7xrFqGT4EEcaaBUXvwVJmx8ibCRJw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01e101d36f8e$17f90030$47eb0090$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <029701d36f9f$eb078c60$c116a520$@att.net>

 

 

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

 

?>>>It trained itself and it started with nothing but the basic rules and was able to beat the best in the world at it, human or machine, in one day?

 

? ?>>?there is no thought process going on behind it?  Dylan

 

?>?That is a strange statement?If you can teach yourself to be the best in the world at some complex task ?without "thought" then what's the point of "thought"? Who needs it? ? John K Clark?

 

 

Whatever Alpha Zero did, it?s just an algorithm that can be understood.  What?s so smart about that?  A dumb machine can do it.

 

As we get better at artificial intelligence, we may discover that what we humans do with our brains isn?t true intelligence at all.  

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 21:42:49 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 15:42:49 -0600
Subject: [ExI] crispr
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEazZ7hDRGX+H-_VCOFpP2onMdUBxUn6eQn5yCcvOgkGng@mail.gmail.com>

I am reading Doudna's new book "A Crack in Creation" and love it, though I
cannot follow the biochemistry and microbiology.  Great writing.  History
of CRISPR for ever 100 pages, followed by health implications, followed by
discussion of ethics, moral dilemmas, etc.

All I can say is WOW.  I hope some of this will be applicable in my
lifetime and it seems that it might be it's going so fast.  I am betting on
her for a Nobel.

A++ rating from me for this book.

bill w
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Dec  7 21:50:31 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 13:50:31 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH9DzhCh9OGUbd5XEBg7-oss+Ha1d_tYz9kOHScz7we3WA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01c801d36f8c$9fea66c0$dfbf3440$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <02ed01d36fa5$67e36880$37aa3980$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

Spike-

>?You can read more on what a TPU actually is here if you're interested, but they're basically custom hardware that is good at running neural nets:
https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2017/05/an-in-depth-look-at-googles-first-tensor-processing-unit-tpu

>?It took 9 hours to train on 44 million different chess games? Dylan

 

 

Ja OK that might be the missing piece: it looked at 44 million chess games.  I had mistakenly drawn the conclusion it didn?t go to existing records but somehow bootstrapped itself to that skill level.  It didn?t generate the games itself.

OK cool, that might have been explained in the original article in ChessNews but I somehow missed it.

spike

 

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From interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 22:15:42 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 17:15:42 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <02ed01d36fa5$67e36880$37aa3980$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01c801d36f8c$9fea66c0$dfbf3440$@att.net>
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 <02ed01d36fa5$67e36880$37aa3980$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH8A--05qK-+4hpM7Njyq1+89_569Evax0yX6qeM-ZzJmQ@mail.gmail.com>

Spike-

It didn't actually look at existing records.  It played 44 million new
games against itself, and when one opponent one resoundingly, that one was
selected as the best overall algo (simplifying a bit).  Basically you have
a neural net optimizing for best strategy to win a game based on the rules,
and evolving an algo based on continued feedback to the system.  It was sui
generis though, no historical games were used.

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 4:50 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *>?* *On Behalf Of *Dylan Distasio
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>
>
>
> Spike-
>
> >?You can read more on what a TPU actually is here if you're interested,
> but they're basically custom hardware that is good at running neural nets:
> https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2017/05/an-in-depth-
> look-at-googles-first-tensor-processing-unit-tpu
>
> >?It took 9 hours to train on 44 million different chess games? Dylan
>
>
>
>
>
> Ja OK that might be the missing piece: it looked at 44 million chess
> games.  I had mistakenly drawn the conclusion it didn?t go to existing
> records but somehow bootstrapped itself to that skill level.  It didn?t
> generate the games itself.
>
> OK cool, that might have been explained in the original article in
> ChessNews but I somehow missed 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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 22:30:46 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 17:30:46 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH-mOv3FgF4-Q54nbVuD60NmUQG_HOG3jZRc13B9ijO9xw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH-dkM3eHQVqHv+yoT60nx24cg1BtHRixmpn5KuC6NRauw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv10wyq76Bz-LyM0Vjb=WiOX9-MR85GM6c5TpcyhjBq+1w@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:

??
>>
>> ?>> ?
>> ?If you can teach yourself to be the best in the world at some complex
>> task ?without "thought" then what's the point of "thought"? Who needs it?
>>
>
> ?> ?
> It's not needed as I'm defining it (human level intelligence combined with
> consciousness
>

I'm far far more interested in intelligence than consciousness
?,
If the machine isn't conscious that's it's problem not mine. But what makes
you think the machine isn't conscious? ?


 whatever that is, but I think we're relatively good at identifying it


?I can directly detect consciousness only in myself, I have a hypothesis
that others of my species are conscious too, but not all the time, not when
they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead.  My hypothesis is other
people are only conscious when they behave intelligently. Teaching
 yourself to be the best in the world at Chess and GO and ?
Shogi
? is pretty intelligent.

?> ?
> I will give you a real world example of why these networks don't think,
> and why thought is important.  I'm going to shift into image recognition
> for the example.    It is very easy to game these machine learning systems
> with an adversarial attack that shifts pixel information that is
> essentially  undetectable to the human eye but that will cause the system
> to misidentify a turtle as a gun (for example).
>

?Humans sometimes ?
misidentify
? images too, and unlike people computers are getting better at image
recognition every day.?


> ?> ?
> The point of thought is to be able to generalize and make decisions with
> sometimes very limited information based on experience and imagination.
> This system is capable of nothing like that.
>

?The system had no information to work with at all except for the basic
rules of Chess, and that is as little information as you can get, and it
wan't a specialized Chess program  as Deepblue was 20 years ago, the same
program could generalize enough to teach itself to be the best in the word
at ?Go and
and Shogi
? too.?


?> ?
It is still very brittle outside of the goal it has been trained on.  It
would need to be retrained for each new goal,

?No, it trained itself, that's what so impressive. ?



?> ?
 Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little resemblance to how
biological nervous systems actually work.

?As far as Chess?

?Go and Shogi are concerned it works far better than ?
biological nervous systems
?.?


?> ?
> I would still argue that this is very far from strong AI.


?Teaching yourself to become best in the world in less than a day sure
doesn't seem very far ?from strong AI to me.

John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 22:45:10 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 16:45:10 -0600
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv10wyq76Bz-LyM0Vjb=WiOX9-MR85GM6c5TpcyhjBq+1w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH-dkM3eHQVqHv+yoT60nx24cg1BtHRixmpn5KuC6NRauw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2JqmiA2xs-3CdpU7xrFqGT4EEcaaBUXvwVJmx8ibCRJw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH-mOv3FgF4-Q54nbVuD60NmUQG_HOG3jZRc13B9ijO9xw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv10wyq76Bz-LyM0Vjb=WiOX9-MR85GM6c5TpcyhjBq+1w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYMH16PN6r+pOh2UcZ46ODQXdr6+_Rh7e_P+tAUuzB0aA@mail.gmail.com>

Teaching  yourself to be the best in the world at Chess and GO and ?
Shogi
? is pretty intelligent.  john


Here's my question:  did the program do anything different from what a
person could do if his mind could work that fast?  I think it's likely that
we don't know this.  We don't know the qualitative differences between the
computer and a human chess player.  Or do we?

bill w

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 4:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> ??
>>>
>>> ?>> ?
>>> ?If you can teach yourself to be the best in the world at some complex
>>> task ?without "thought" then what's the point of "thought"? Who needs it?
>>>
>>
>> ?> ?
>> It's not needed as I'm defining it (human level intelligence combined
>> with consciousness
>>
>
> I'm far far more interested in intelligence than consciousness
> ?,
> If the machine isn't conscious that's it's problem not mine. But what
> makes you think the machine isn't conscious? ?
>
>
>  whatever that is, but I think we're relatively good at identifying it
>
>
> ?I can directly detect consciousness only in myself, I have a hypothesis
> that others of my species are conscious too, but not all the time, not when
> they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead.  My hypothesis is other
> people are only conscious when they behave intelligently. Teaching
>  yourself to be the best in the world at Chess and GO and ?
> Shogi
> ? is pretty intelligent.
>
> ?> ?
>> I will give you a real world example of why these networks don't think,
>> and why thought is important.  I'm going to shift into image recognition
>> for the example.    It is very easy to game these machine learning systems
>> with an adversarial attack that shifts pixel information that is
>> essentially  undetectable to the human eye but that will cause the system
>> to misidentify a turtle as a gun (for example).
>>
>
> ?Humans sometimes ?
> misidentify
> ? images too, and unlike people computers are getting better at image
> recognition every day.?
>
>
>> ?> ?
>> The point of thought is to be able to generalize and make decisions with
>> sometimes very limited information based on experience and imagination.
>> This system is capable of nothing like that.
>>
>
> ?The system had no information to work with at all except for the basic
> rules of Chess, and that is as little information as you can get, and it
> wan't a specialized Chess program  as Deepblue was 20 years ago, the same
> program could generalize enough to teach itself to be the best in the word
> at ?Go and
> and Shogi
> ? too.?
>
>
> ?> ?
> It is still very brittle outside of the goal it has been trained on.  It
> would need to be retrained for each new goal,
>
> ?No, it trained itself, that's what so impressive. ?
>
>
>
> ?> ?
>  Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little resemblance to how
> biological nervous systems actually work.
>
> ?As far as Chess?
>
> ?Go and Shogi are concerned it works far better than ?
> biological nervous systems
> ?.?
>
>
> ?> ?
>> I would still argue that this is very far from strong AI.
>
>
> ?Teaching yourself to become best in the world in less than a day sure
> doesn't seem very far ?from strong AI to me.
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec  7 22:54:52 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 17:54:52 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYMH16PN6r+pOh2UcZ46ODQXdr6+_Rh7e_P+tAUuzB0aA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJrqPH9qOXDAXwoG5cDfv=qR6UFC32N2rtCdm5=FiC1=Gfoj4Q@mail.gmail.com>

I think if you want to call this intelligence, it is completely alien to
human thought.  Of course, I may be wrong in that assertion, but based on
what we know about real neurons and the number of connections back and
forth between different ones (and the increasing important roles of various
helper cell types that were originally thought to be relatively
unimportant), I don't think deep learning networks are anywhere close to
how human beings learn and think.  I'm not making a judgement on which is
more effective all things being equal, just that they are likely very
different processes.

These networks figure out the importance of and relationships between
inputs by attempting to minimize a mathematical loss function.  It seems
unlikely that this is how wetware works, although I would imagine there are
overlapping network/information theory effects that are above my paygrade
to speak intelligently to.

Google has done some nice work visualizing how neural networks work
recently to try to pull back the curtain a bit, but I think any strong AI
that evolves from these deep learning/reinforcement algos will not be
thinking via the same underlying processes that we use.  This may have some
very large implications, some of which might not be so good for us.

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 5:45 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Teaching  yourself to be the best in the world at Chess and GO and ?
> Shogi
> ? is pretty intelligent.  john
>
>
> Here's my question:  did the program do anything different from what a
> person could do if his mind could work that fast?  I think it's likely that
> we don't know this.  We don't know the qualitative differences between the
> computer and a human chess player.  Or do we?
>
> bill w
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 4:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> ??
>>>>
>>>> ?>> ?
>>>> ?If you can teach yourself to be the best in the world at some complex
>>>> task ?without "thought" then what's the point of "thought"? Who needs it?
>>>>
>>>
>>> ?> ?
>>> It's not needed as I'm defining it (human level intelligence combined
>>> with consciousness
>>>
>>
>> I'm far far more interested in intelligence than consciousness
>> ?,
>> If the machine isn't conscious that's it's problem not mine. But what
>> makes you think the machine isn't conscious? ?
>>
>>
>>  whatever that is, but I think we're relatively good at identifying it
>>
>>
>> ?I can directly detect consciousness only in myself, I have a hypothesis
>> that others of my species are conscious too, but not all the time, not when
>> they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead.  My hypothesis is other
>> people are only conscious when they behave intelligently. Teaching
>>  yourself to be the best in the world at Chess and GO and ?
>> Shogi
>> ? is pretty intelligent.
>>
>> ?> ?
>>> I will give you a real world example of why these networks don't think,
>>> and why thought is important.  I'm going to shift into image recognition
>>> for the example.    It is very easy to game these machine learning systems
>>> with an adversarial attack that shifts pixel information that is
>>> essentially  undetectable to the human eye but that will cause the system
>>> to misidentify a turtle as a gun (for example).
>>>
>>
>> ?Humans sometimes ?
>> misidentify
>> ? images too, and unlike people computers are getting better at image
>> recognition every day.?
>>
>>
>>> ?> ?
>>> The point of thought is to be able to generalize and make decisions with
>>> sometimes very limited information based on experience and imagination.
>>> This system is capable of nothing like that.
>>>
>>
>> ?The system had no information to work with at all except for the basic
>> rules of Chess, and that is as little information as you can get, and it
>> wan't a specialized Chess program  as Deepblue was 20 years ago, the same
>> program could generalize enough to teach itself to be the best in the word
>> at ?Go and
>> and Shogi
>> ? too.?
>>
>>
>> ?> ?
>> It is still very brittle outside of the goal it has been trained on.  It
>> would need to be retrained for each new goal,
>>
>> ?No, it trained itself, that's what so impressive. ?
>>
>>
>>
>> ?> ?
>>  Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little resemblance to how
>> biological nervous systems actually work.
>>
>> ?As far as Chess?
>>
>> ?Go and Shogi are concerned it works far better than ?
>> biological nervous systems
>> ?.?
>>
>>
>> ?> ?
>>> I would still argue that this is very far from strong AI.
>>
>>
>> ?Teaching yourself to become best in the world in less than a day sure
>> doesn't seem very far ?from strong AI to me.
>>
>> John K Clark
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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  Thu Dec  7 22:39:28 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 14:39:28 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH8A--05qK-+4hpM7Njyq1+89_569Evax0yX6qeM-ZzJmQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <006c01d36fac$3e567d70$bb037850$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2017 2:16 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

Spike-

>?It didn't actually look at existing records.  It played 44 million new games against itself, and when one opponent one resoundingly, that one was selected as the best overall algo (simplifying a bit).  Basically you have a neural net optimizing for best strategy to win a game based on the rules, and evolving an algo based on continued feedback to the system.  It was sui generis though, no historical games were used.  Dylan

 

 

 

OK this is where my imagination fails.  86400 seconds in a day, to do 44 million games means generating them at a rate of 500 per second.  I don?t see how, using the description given, the software could do that.  Even if it did somehow, I don?t see how it could possibly draw useful inferences from it.

 

There is something I am not understanding.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 4:50 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

Spike-

>?You can read more on what a TPU actually is here if you're interested, but they're basically custom hardware that is good at running neural nets:
https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2017/05/an-in-depth-look-at-googles-first-tensor-processing-unit-tpu

>?It took 9 hours to train on 44 million different chess games? Dylan

 

 

Ja OK that might be the missing piece: it looked at 44 million chess games.  I had mistakenly drawn the conclusion it didn?t go to existing records but somehow bootstrapped itself to that skill level.  It didn?t generate the games itself.

OK cool, that might have been explained in the original article in ChessNews but I somehow missed it.

spike

 


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

 

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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 00:32:00 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 19:32:00 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv10wyq76Bz-LyM0Vjb=WiOX9-MR85GM6c5TpcyhjBq+1w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dv60OLBv28QKmkC-bbPOZUjzDMML8DFBWhdtsaio5oFw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 5:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> ?
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
>  wrote:
>
> ?
>  Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little resemblance to how
> biological nervous systems actually work.
>
> ?As far as Chess?
>
> ?Go and Shogi are concerned it works far better than ?
> biological nervous systems
> ?.?
>
>

Yes, in simple, well-defined domains. Computers are incredibly fast at math
but that doesn't mean they're math geniuses. I can't do billions of
floating point operations per second, but I can explain to a child in terms
it will understand what "addition" means. A CPU has no understanding of
what it does. Likewise, AlphaGO has no understanding of the games it plays.
It can't explain its strategy--it has none, it just "knows" what usually
works--and that's excessively anthropomorphic, it knows nothing: it just
does what it was programmed to do.

It a clever and useful technique but it's a far cry from a general
intelligence that can interact directly with the world where the rules
aren't all known, and communicate with other intelligent entities, evaluate
novel situations, and solve complex problems.

-Dave
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From stathisp at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 00:50:22 2017
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 11:50:22 +1100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dv60OLBv28QKmkC-bbPOZUjzDMML8DFBWhdtsaio5oFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAH=2ypVN3M-sBQYCaqJJr1dpYyo_761TmN+CCzVMcpidVSNWEg@mail.gmail.com>

On 8 December 2017 at 11:32, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 5:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> ?
>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>
> > ?
>>  Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little resemblance to how
>> biological nervous systems actually work.
>>
>> ?As far as Chess?
>>
>> ?Go and Shogi are concerned it works far better than ?
>> biological nervous systems
>> ?.?
>>
>>
>
> Yes, in simple, well-defined domains. Computers are incredibly fast at
> math but that doesn't mean they're math geniuses. I can't do billions of
> floating point operations per second, but I can explain to a child in terms
> it will understand what "addition" means. A CPU has no understanding of
> what it does. Likewise, AlphaGO has no understanding of the games it plays.
> It can't explain its strategy--it has none, it just "knows" what usually
> works--and that's excessively anthropomorphic, it knows nothing: it just
> does what it was programmed to do.
>
> It a clever and useful technique but it's a far cry from a general
> intelligence that can interact directly with the world where the rules
> aren't all known, and communicate with other intelligent entities, evaluate
> novel situations, and solve complex problems.
>

My neurons just do what they're programmed to do, following the rigid rules
of physics. I seem to know things, but I don't really "know" how I know
them. I can explain things to others, but I don't really "know" how I can
explain them, or how my brain leads me to "understand". Perhaps I just
"know" and "understand" things in a mechanistic way.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 00:57:04 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 18:57:04 -0600
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dv60OLBv28QKmkC-bbPOZUjzDMML8DFBWhdtsaio5oFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZ+xk3AJAHPcaSqihQv+Doee1wzYeC5g27PbQjjREqMkg@mail.gmail.com>

I suspect that if we were to look at what philosophers say about it, they
would tell us that they really did not know for sure what the word 'know'
means.  Only the toad knows (Alice in Wonderland).

We may never know how the unconscious works.  It is not meant (whatever
that word means) to be conscious.  Duh.

"It's as if they are doing this when they think."  This will be as close as
we can get.  A model.

So it may be that studying people's minds so that we can program computers
to copy the way they work is not the best strategy to advance computer
thinking.

I suspect the Singularity is pretty far off.

bill w

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 6:32 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 5:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> ?
>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>
> > ?
>>  Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little resemblance to how
>> biological nervous systems actually work.
>>
>> ?As far as Chess?
>>
>> ?Go and Shogi are concerned it works far better than ?
>> biological nervous systems
>> ?.?
>>
>>
>
> Yes, in simple, well-defined domains. Computers are incredibly fast at
> math but that doesn't mean they're math geniuses. I can't do billions of
> floating point operations per second, but I can explain to a child in terms
> it will understand what "addition" means. A CPU has no understanding of
> what it does. Likewise, AlphaGO has no understanding of the games it plays.
> It can't explain its strategy--it has none, it just "knows" what usually
> works--and that's excessively anthropomorphic, it knows nothing: it just
> does what it was programmed to do.
>
> It a clever and useful technique but it's a far cry from a general
> intelligence that can interact directly with the world where the rules
> aren't all known, and communicate with other intelligent entities, evaluate
> novel situations, and solve complex problems.
>
> -Dave
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From stathisp at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 01:12:46 2017
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 12:12:46 +1100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZ+xk3AJAHPcaSqihQv+Doee1wzYeC5g27PbQjjREqMkg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAH=2ypWZuAEyV4FPSq10j_VCb3EXx3s0-DninBdoPjzL+Gdmqg@mail.gmail.com>

On 8 December 2017 at 11:57, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I suspect that if we were to look at what philosophers say about it, they
> would tell us that they really did not know for sure what the word 'know'
> means.  Only the toad knows (Alice in Wonderland).
>
> We may never know how the unconscious works.  It is not meant (whatever
> that word means) to be conscious.  Duh.
>
> "It's as if they are doing this when they think."  This will be as close
> as we can get.  A model.
>
> So it may be that studying people's minds so that we can program computers
> to copy the way they work is not the best strategy to advance computer
> thinking.
>

It may also be that trying to achieve true "understanding" is a red herring
- behaving *as if* it understands is sufficient, and at bottom what humans
do.


> I suspect the Singularity is pretty far off.
>
> bill w
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 6:32 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 5:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> ?
>>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>> > ?
>>>  Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little resemblance to how
>>> biological nervous systems actually work.
>>>
>>> ?As far as Chess?
>>>
>>> ?Go and Shogi are concerned it works far better than ?
>>> biological nervous systems
>>> ?.?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Yes, in simple, well-defined domains. Computers are incredibly fast at
>> math but that doesn't mean they're math geniuses. I can't do billions of
>> floating point operations per second, but I can explain to a child in terms
>> it will understand what "addition" means. A CPU has no understanding of
>> what it does. Likewise, AlphaGO has no understanding of the games it plays.
>> It can't explain its strategy--it has none, it just "knows" what usually
>> works--and that's excessively anthropomorphic, it knows nothing: it just
>> does what it was programmed to do.
>>
>> It a clever and useful technique but it's a far cry from a general
>> intelligence that can interact directly with the world where the rules
>> aren't all known, and communicate with other intelligent entities, evaluate
>> novel situations, and solve complex problems.
>>
>> -Dave
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
>


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 01:26:57 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 20:26:57 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAH=2ypWZuAEyV4FPSq10j_VCb3EXx3s0-DninBdoPjzL+Gdmqg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAH=2ypWZuAEyV4FPSq10j_VCb3EXx3s0-DninBdoPjzL+Gdmqg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2e9SprQiaT-JmTsyehf1FOnEtJBJ_QGUgvv5m2runSsrA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 8:12 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> It may also be that trying to achieve true "understanding" is a red
> herring - behaving *as if* it understands is sufficient, and at bottom what
> humans do.
>

I don't care if it's "real" understanding or "simulated" understanding as
long as it's functional understanding.

-Dave
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 01:39:28 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 19:39:28 -0600
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAH=2ypWZuAEyV4FPSq10j_VCb3EXx3s0-DninBdoPjzL+Gdmqg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
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stathis wrote:  It may also be that trying to achieve true "understanding"
is a red herring - behaving *as if* it understands is sufficient, and at
bottom what humans do.

---------
This is my nit to pick with philosophers.  They attack some concept and if
someone can come up with any counterexample, not matter how trivial or
based on absurd hypothetical situations, then they agree that they have to
try again.

So they tend to never conclude anything.  But we have to go on living, and
take 'good enough for who/what it's for' data, apply it, deal with the good
and the bad effects.

In a sense, error variance, a strong force, will always be with us .

bill w

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:12 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On 8 December 2017 at 11:57, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I suspect that if we were to look at what philosophers say about it, they
>> would tell us that they really did not know for sure what the word 'know'
>> means.  Only the toad knows (Alice in Wonderland).
>>
>> We may never know how the unconscious works.  It is not meant (whatever
>> that word means) to be conscious.  Duh.
>>
>> "It's as if they are doing this when they think."  This will be as close
>> as we can get.  A model.
>>
>> So it may be that studying people's minds so that we can program
>> computers to copy the way they work is not the best strategy to advance
>> computer thinking.
>>
>
> It may also be that trying to achieve true "understanding" is a red
> herring - behaving *as if* it understands is sufficient, and at bottom what
> humans do.
>
>
>> I suspect the Singularity is pretty far off.
>>
>> bill w
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 6:32 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 5:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ?
>>>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>
>>> > ?
>>>>  Deep learning neural nets appear to bear little resemblance to how
>>>> biological nervous systems actually work.
>>>>
>>>> ?As far as Chess?
>>>>
>>>> ?Go and Shogi are concerned it works far better than ?
>>>> biological nervous systems
>>>> ?.?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, in simple, well-defined domains. Computers are incredibly fast at
>>> math but that doesn't mean they're math geniuses. I can't do billions of
>>> floating point operations per second, but I can explain to a child in terms
>>> it will understand what "addition" means. A CPU has no understanding of
>>> what it does. Likewise, AlphaGO has no understanding of the games it plays.
>>> It can't explain its strategy--it has none, it just "knows" what usually
>>> works--and that's excessively anthropomorphic, it knows nothing: it just
>>> does what it was programmed to do.
>>>
>>> It a clever and useful technique but it's a far cry from a general
>>> intelligence that can interact directly with the world where the rules
>>> aren't all known, and communicate with other intelligent entities, evaluate
>>> novel situations, and solve complex problems.
>>>
>>> -Dave
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Fri Dec  8 02:10:49 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 21:10:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dv60OLBv28QKmkC-bbPOZUjzDMML8DFBWhdtsaio5oFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:32 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:


> ?> ?
> AlphaGO has no understanding of the games it plays. It can't explain its
> strategy
>

?A human player couldn't explain exactly why he made the move he did rather
than the astronomical number of other moves he didn't even consider, he
would just say that from experience I know when the board is in this
general sort of position only a small number of moves is even worth
considering, and I had a good feeling about one of them so I made it. I
imagine
AlphaGO
?would say much the same thing. After all, if a human genius could explain
?exactly how he does what what he does we could just follow his advice and
we'd all be geniuses too. But a human genius doesn't understand exactly how
his mind works and neither would a smart program.


> ?> ?
>  that's excessively anthropomorphic
>

?That is not a dirty word, I think we should
?anthropomorphise things if they are intelligent as we are.

John K Clark
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From dsunley at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 02:17:14 2017
From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 19:17:14 -0700
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0p4k8SnYSKAHUHhfyRhf9GkUUj+hw+FJoNLuXwr6oRpQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAEptUkSoHUhOtQm0DCSbQvsmMBxCuohmkFbEomdcgiFMx1TLgg@mail.gmail.com>

I strongly suspect that, when we get around to training neural nets to both
perform particular complex tasks and to introspect on precisely how they
perform those tasks, that the neural net's introspection report, like human
introspection reports, will bear no resemblance whatsoever to what is going
on down at the neuron level.

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:10 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:32 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> ?> ?
>> AlphaGO has no understanding of the games it plays. It can't explain its
>> strategy
>>
>
> ?A human player couldn't explain exactly why he made the move he did
> rather than the astronomical number of other moves he didn't even consider,
> he would just say that from experience I know when the board is in this
> general sort of position only a small number of moves is even worth
> considering, and I had a good feeling about one of them so I made it. I
> imagine
> AlphaGO
> ?would say much the same thing. After all, if a human genius could explain
> ?exactly how he does what what he does we could just follow his advice and
> we'd all be geniuses too. But a human genius doesn't understand exactly how
> his mind works and neither would a smart program.
>
>
>> ?> ?
>>  that's excessively anthropomorphic
>>
>
> ?That is not a dirty word, I think we should
> ?anthropomorphise things if they are intelligent as we are.
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 02:19:55 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 21:19:55 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0p4k8SnYSKAHUHhfyRhf9GkUUj+hw+FJoNLuXwr6oRpQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dh72z2L4da0Fp9ogZ9=yrmXyXckma=2KjgnC6nQF0h_g@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 9:10 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> I imagine
> AlphaGO
> ?would say much the same thing.
>

In your imagination, yes. But AlphaGO can "say" anything other than a game
move and can't "hear" any question other than an opponent's move.


> ?> ?
>>  that's excessively anthropomorphic
>>
>
> ?That is not a dirty word, I think we should
> ?anthropomorphise things if they are intelligent as we are.
>

The problem is knowing when they're as intelligent as we are. AlphaGO isn't
even close. If it wants to argue otherwise I'd happy to engage it.

-Dave
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 02:24:12 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 21:24:12 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZ+xk3AJAHPcaSqihQv+Doee1wzYeC5g27PbQjjREqMkg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:57 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

?> ?
> I suspect the Singularity is pretty far off.
>

?Maybe, maybe not. Even if it won't happen for a thousand years in 999
years it will still seem pretty far out, and when it arrives it will be a
big surprise. If it were otherwise it wouldn't be a singularity.?

?

 John K Clark?
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec  8 01:56:16 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 17:56:16 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAH=2ypWZuAEyV4FPSq10j_VCb3EXx3s0-DninBdoPjzL+Gdmqg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <017e01d36fc7$bd1ff6c0$375fe440$@att.net>

Here?s Deep Mind?s paper:

 

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf

 

I am still puzzled.  Oh for a thousand lifetimes to study and understand.

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec  8 02:59:41 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 18:59:41 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2rj0OnFd0o-G-F5CV2cnr7XFSgSo6U2D0hau6fak6OFg@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <01d801d36fd0$98cdc820$ca695860$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
ubject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:57 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com> > wrote:

 

?> ?>?I suspect the Singularity is pretty far off.

 

?>?Maybe, maybe not. Even if it won't happen for a thousand years in 999 years it will still seem pretty far out, and when it arrives it will be a big surprise. If it were otherwise it wouldn't be a singularity.?.. John K Clark?

 

 

This whole episode has been swoon out-cold surprise to me.

 

Consider: even if we assume there is something amiss, even if we assume there is some big puzzle piece we aren?t being told? what this Alpha Zero program has already done is so crazy impressive, it is astonishing.  I follow the computer chess championships every round and note that the games are generally dull as a typical afternoon at the Assisted Living center.  But these games aren?t dull at all.  They are full of high-concept, very positional strategic play.

 

But assume for the sake of argument there is some kind of elaborate hoax.  It can?t be they faked Stockfish?s play, because that is verifiable.  Millions of copies of Stockfish (that exact version) are out there, so anyone can put all the settings to the values they give in the paper and verify Stockfish would respond as the game said it did.  The games look very Stockfishish to me.  So if it is a hoax of some sort, they would need to be helping it somehow, presumably with human intervention.  But plenty of the tactical shots wouldn?t be found by a dozen grandmasters, and even if it had been done that way, plenty of people would know about the hoax.

 

Furthermore? as far as I can tell, everyone who signed on to this paper is a real person.

 

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf

 

But even if all that, we have good examples there of something beating the bits out of Stockfish, which means? whatever did that may compete for the computer chess world championship next round, and will win if these results are real.  This would occur to DeepMind: that they would be expected to compete and win next round, so even if they perpetrated a hoax somehow, they would do so knowing they were going to get caught, and then no one would believe their company afterwards.

 

So? I conclude with awed astonishment? that these results are probably the real thing.

 

If you had offered a PredictIt bet to me last week that some innovative approach to computer chess would just show up unexpected and slay Stockfish, I would have offered 98 cents for no votes, then lost it all.

 

This whole episode has caused me to look anew with a more open mind on the notion of a surprise singularity.  I always considered that scenario most unlikely, but I considered this DeepMind chess program nearly impossible.  Now I think it must be right.  Shows to go ya.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec  8 04:43:31 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 20:43:31 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <01d801d36fd0$98cdc820$ca695860$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <021c01d36fdf$19bc3030$4d349090$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2017 7:00 PM
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

>...This whole episode has caused me to look anew with a more open mind on the notion of a surprise singularity.  I always considered that scenario most unlikely, but I considered this DeepMind chess program nearly impossible.  Now I think it must be right.  Shows to go ya?spike

 

 

Recall many previous singularity discussions, where plenty of us concluded that there was no arrival at the singularity by incremental steps from where we are.  The singularity requires some breakthroughs in understanding somewhere, probably several of them.  If the Chess AlphaZero experiment turns out to be real, as defined by it showing up at the next TCEC spanking everything in sight, then I would say DeepMind has provided one of those breakthroughs on the path to achieving machine intelligence.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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From giulio at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 06:20:21 2017
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 07:20:21 +0100
Subject: [ExI] crispr
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEazZ7hDRGX+H-_VCOFpP2onMdUBxUn6eQn5yCcvOgkGng@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEazZ7hDRGX+H-_VCOFpP2onMdUBxUn6eQn5yCcvOgkGng@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKTCJye=MMwwv=8ipGA+W2C5=0Efv0_WELx3fqUX0sLFKjcv8g@mail.gmail.com>

It's a great book indeed, and I hope Doudna will get the Nobel for her
pioneering work in CRISPR.

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 10:42 PM, William Flynn Wallace
<foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am reading Doudna's new book "A Crack in Creation" and love it, though I
> cannot follow the biochemistry and microbiology.  Great writing.  History of
> CRISPR for ever 100 pages, followed by health implications, followed by
> discussion of ethics, moral dilemmas, etc.
>
> All I can say is WOW.  I hope some of this will be applicable in my lifetime
> and it seems that it might be it's going so fast.  I am betting on her for a
> Nobel.
>
> A++ rating from me for this book.
>
> bill w
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>


From zoielsoy at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 07:09:21 2017
From: zoielsoy at gmail.com (Angel Z. Lopez)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 02:09:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] crispr
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEazZ7hDRGX+H-_VCOFpP2onMdUBxUn6eQn5yCcvOgkGng@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEazZ7hDRGX+H-_VCOFpP2onMdUBxUn6eQn5yCcvOgkGng@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALHxhTQ2kC4CgZrY+QTTMJWDb++0t6OOiwzPzUtOxTenNBNAsg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi William,

I would love to read that book. I read quite a bit on cell biology and
chemistry. I have been studying GSH for many years now and enjoy books by
Jimmy Gutman MD. Would it be too much of me to ask you if you could send me
a copy of ?A Crack in Creation?? Im currently not able to purchase any new
books and have been lacking reading material.

Best,
Angel

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 4:42 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I am reading Doudna's new book "A Crack in Creation" and love it, though I
> cannot follow the biochemistry and microbiology.  Great writing.  History
> of CRISPR for ever 100 pages, followed by health implications, followed by
> discussion of ethics, moral dilemmas, etc.
>
> All I can say is WOW.  I hope some of this will be applicable in my
> lifetime and it seems that it might be it's going so fast.  I am betting on
> her for a Nobel.
>
> A++ rating from me for this book.
>
> 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 avant at sollegro.com  Fri Dec  8 06:53:54 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 22:53:54 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
Message-ID: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

> And even if the sphere is not infinite but just astronomically large
> I don't see how
> ?that idea
> can explain why the universe was decelerating for the first 9 billion
> years of its existence and only started accelerating 5 billion years ago.

My attempts to mathematically formulate my theory of causal cells has led
me to an astonishing conclusion. The Schwarzschild metric predicts that
causal cells and black holes are one and the same thing.

We live in a black hole that collided with a larger and less dense black
hole about 5 billion years ago. Before that time, our causal cell/black
hole had simply been decreasing in density and expanding its Schwarschild
radius through matter accretion including other smaller denser black holes
in addition to the stellar mass black holes and galactic super-massives
that formed while already inside our causal cell.

The speed up associated with "dark energy" is actually being caused by our
causal cell "falling" toward the singularity of that larger causal
cell/black hole. The accelerated expansion is happening in the outward
direction because the Shcwarzchild metric predicts that all directions
become time-like toward the singularity inside the event horizon of a
black hole. This is an orthogonal shift of the time-axis in Minkowski
space to an arbitrary space-axis.

When two black holes are nested there is yet another is a 90 degree shift
in the direction of the time-axis so it is now lies along it's original
axis but now running in the reverse direction. Each such nesting changes
the time axis by 90 degrees.

In other words, we were falling toward the singularity of our our causal
cell which used to be in our future until our causal cell collided with a
larger and less dense black hole. Now the larger black holes singularity
is our future and our own singularity is now in our past.

You all call it the big bang.

Our causal cell's Schawrzchild radius is in same *place* but now its event
horizon runs in a time-reversed fashion owing to the nested Schwarschild
metrics of two black holes.

Thus the universe might be an infinite series of nested blackholes.

I have the math to back it up, but I can't post it right now because I
just landed a temporary full-time gig as a high school chem teacher. I
will try to post the math over the winter break.

Stuart LaForge



From alito at organicrobot.com  Fri Dec  8 08:35:16 2017
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 19:35:16 +1100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>

The 4TPUs were what was used during playing time. During training they 
say it used 64 second-generation TPUs for "training the neural network" 
ie the gradient, backprop etc of the neural network itself. It also used 
another 5,000 first-generation TPUs to generate the games. Both of those 
are from page 4 of their paper. I've got no idea of the computing power 
of those TPUs.

BTW, while this is, to me, the biggest newest in the history of chess, 
it follows naturally from their AlphaGo Zero paper published on Nature a 
whole month and a half ago: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24270

I don't think there's anything sinister in the whole affair, except for 
the usual DeepMind showboating (and the usual question of why they 
denied StockFish their opening book and only gave it 1GB of hashtable 
memory). I expect people to indepedently replicate this, albeit at a 
slower pace due to limited resources, within the next couple of years.


On 08/12/17 07:10, Dylan Distasio wrote:
> The paper describes in detail how they did it and how long it took.  
> Again, I see no reason to question any of it.? It's an evolutionary 
> advance from their work on Go, and is using established deep learning 
> and reinforcement techniques on powerful hardware (although not insanely 
> powerful, 4 TPUs is not unobtainium 
> https://www.blog.google/topics/google-cloud/google-cloud-offer-tpus-machine-learning/).
> 
> 
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 3:01 PM, Tomaz Kristan <protokol2020 at gmail.com 
> <mailto:protokol2020 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Like spike, I also think something hasn't been told or at least
>     something hasn't been emphasized as it should be.
> 
>     But if it's not today, it will be in a year or two. Doesn't really
>     matter. (What does matter, is that the Singularity is closer than ever.)
> 
>     On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 8:34 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com
>     <mailto:interzone at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>         I think you would be surprised at how little code is actually
>         there if we could see the source code.? Tensorflow does a lot of
>         heavy lifting in terms of abstracting neural nets, and the
>         secret sauce in the recipe is the trained weights of the net. 
>         There is very little conventional code beyond setting up the
>         structure of the neural net and the reinforcement objectives. 
>         Training on 77 million simulated games is the key.
> 
>         On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:15 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net
>         <mailto:spike66 at att.net>> wrote:
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             *From:* spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net>]
>             *Sent:* Thursday, December 07, 2017 10:53 AM
>             *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>             <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>>
>             *Subject:* RE: [ExI] alpha zero____
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             *From:* extropy-chat
>             [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>             <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf
>             Of *spike
>             *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero____
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             *From:* extropy-chat
>             [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>             <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf
>             Of *John Clark____
> 
>             __ __
> 
>                 ?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true. spike____
> 
>                 __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             >>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ??John K Clark ?____
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>              >?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.? I don?t
>             suspect an intentional hoax, rather something they neglected
>             to tell us?spike____
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             There is something else.? If someone writes a chess-playing
>             program today that defeats the best effort of the best
>             humans for 500 years, that has been done.? According to the
>             article, what Alpha Zero has done is defeat the collective
>             programming efforts of armies of professional programmers
>             working with huge monetary rewards for the past 75 years,
>             which is far more impressive than overpowering humans in
>             chess.____
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             Something is still not being told here methinks.____
> 
>             __ __
> 
>             spike____
> 
> 
>             _______________________________________________
>             extropy-chat mailing list
>             extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>             <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>             http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>             <http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
> 
> 
> 
>         _______________________________________________
>         extropy-chat mailing list
>         extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>         <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>         http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>         <http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     -- 
>     https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
>     <https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/>
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     extropy-chat mailing list
>     extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>     http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>     <http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> 



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 14:18:46 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 08:18:46 -0600
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0p4k8SnYSKAHUHhfyRhf9GkUUj+hw+FJoNLuXwr6oRpQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH-dkM3eHQVqHv+yoT60nx24cg1BtHRixmpn5KuC6NRauw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2JqmiA2xs-3CdpU7xrFqGT4EEcaaBUXvwVJmx8ibCRJw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH-mOv3FgF4-Q54nbVuD60NmUQG_HOG3jZRc13B9ijO9xw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv10wyq76Bz-LyM0Vjb=WiOX9-MR85GM6c5TpcyhjBq+1w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dv60OLBv28QKmkC-bbPOZUjzDMML8DFBWhdtsaio5oFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv0p4k8SnYSKAHUHhfyRhf9GkUUj+hw+FJoNLuXwr6oRpQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZ-vy1A4bYbpuJ6P-ZqrPyaDjSghdZDgoz5DrHWfk-akA@mail.gmail.com>

John wrote: After all, if a human genius could explain ?exactly how he does
what what he does we could just follow his advice and we'd all be geniuses
too. But a human genius doesn't understand exactly how his mind works and
neither would a smart program.
-------------------
Two things: One - no one can state what process preceded the behavior,
whether physical or mental - all unconscious.  I disagree with John in that
a genius is probably using something mental that is not available to the
rest of us, whatever it may be.  Could anyone be trained to be a Tesla?
Nope.

Two  - if we really want to make some AI perform like a person we will have
to figure out some way to install emotions in it.  Studies show that all
decisions we make are in part emotional.  Just look how apparently
intelligent people can believe the incredible things that they do - read
about Newton for example and his wild ideas.

I think what we want in an AI is totally rational thinking - no judgment as
to whether the decision is 'liked' or 'fun'.  Emotions are just too
variable, changing by the moment according to who knows what 'logic'.   A
policeman shoots a man running away from him and nearly instantly regrets
it.  We certainly don't want decisions like that from an AI.  (that officer
just got 20 years in jail).

With incredibly advanced technology, we might be able to follow the paths
of a thought or action in a brain, noting what parts were involved and in
which order.  That's the what.  Why, how, the meaning of it - totally
hidden.  How to get another brain or computer to do that?  Impossible.

So I ask - do we really want to model an AI after a human brain?  I say
no.  Human thinking is just far too irrational.

bill w

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 8:10 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:32 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> ?> ?
>> AlphaGO has no understanding of the games it plays. It can't explain its
>> strategy
>>
>
> ?A human player couldn't explain exactly why he made the move he did
> rather than the astronomical number of other moves he didn't even consider,
> he would just say that from experience I know when the board is in this
> general sort of position only a small number of moves is even worth
> considering, and I had a good feeling about one of them so I made it. I
> imagine
> AlphaGO
> ?would say much the same thing. After all, if a human genius could explain
> ?exactly how he does what what he does we could just follow his advice and
> we'd all be geniuses too. But a human genius doesn't understand exactly how
> his mind works and neither would a smart program.
>
>
>> ?> ?
>>  that's excessively anthropomorphic
>>
>
> ?That is not a dirty word, I think we should
> ?anthropomorphise things if they are intelligent as we are.
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From interzone at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 14:42:12 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 09:42:12 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH8RTx0ZLPRhXp5zLqJgdXLEiLcCWh9DMg0khbMyo14HKA@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks for clarifying the TPU counts, I should have read the paper more
carefully.  That changes what I said earlier a great deal in terms of
computing horsepower used for training and game simulation.  They actually
used an absolutely tremendous amount of computing power that is not easily
available to the general populace.  This doesn't take away from the
accomplishment, but it explains the training time being accomplished in
less than half a day.

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 3:35 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky <alito at organicrobot.com>
wrote:

> The 4TPUs were what was used during playing time. During training they say
> it used 64 second-generation TPUs for "training the neural network" ie the
> gradient, backprop etc of the neural network itself. It also used another
> 5,000 first-generation TPUs to generate the games. Both of those are from
> page 4 of their paper. I've got no idea of the computing power of those
> TPUs.
>
> BTW, while this is, to me, the biggest newest in the history of chess, it
> follows naturally from their AlphaGo Zero paper published on Nature a whole
> month and a half ago: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24270
>
> I don't think there's anything sinister in the whole affair, except for
> the usual DeepMind showboating (and the usual question of why they denied
> StockFish their opening book and only gave it 1GB of hashtable memory). I
> expect people to indepedently replicate this, albeit at a slower pace due
> to limited resources, within the next couple of years.
>
>
> On 08/12/17 07:10, Dylan Distasio wrote:
>
>> The paper describes in detail how they did it and how long it took.
>> Again, I see no reason to question any of it.  It's an evolutionary advance
>> from their work on Go, and is using established deep learning and
>> reinforcement techniques on powerful hardware (although not insanely
>> powerful, 4 TPUs is not unobtainium https://www.blog.google/topics
>> /google-cloud/google-cloud-offer-tpus-machine-learning/).
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 3:01 PM, Tomaz Kristan <protokol2020 at gmail.com
>> <mailto:protokol2020 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Like spike, I also think something hasn't been told or at least
>>     something hasn't been emphasized as it should be.
>>
>>     But if it's not today, it will be in a year or two. Doesn't really
>>     matter. (What does matter, is that the Singularity is closer than
>> ever.)
>>
>>     On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 8:34 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:interzone at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>         I think you would be surprised at how little code is actually
>>         there if we could see the source code.  Tensorflow does a lot of
>>         heavy lifting in terms of abstracting neural nets, and the
>>         secret sauce in the recipe is the trained weights of the net.
>>      There is very little conventional code beyond setting up the
>>         structure of the neural net and the reinforcement objectives.
>>      Training on 77 million simulated games is the key.
>>
>>         On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 2:15 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net
>>         <mailto:spike66 at att.net>> wrote:
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             *From:* spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net
>> >]
>>             *Sent:* Thursday, December 07, 2017 10:53 AM
>>             *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>             <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>>
>>             *Subject:* RE: [ExI] alpha zero____
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             *From:* extropy-chat
>>             [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>>             <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf
>>             Of *spike
>>             *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero____
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             *From:* extropy-chat
>>             [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>>             <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf
>>             Of *John Clark____
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>                 ?>>>??I still haven?t convinced myself it is true.
>> spike____
>>
>>                 __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             >>?If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of
>> which we haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ??John K Clark ?____
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>              >?Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don?t
>>             suspect an intentional hoax, rather something they neglected
>>             to tell us?spike____
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             There is something else.  If someone writes a chess-playing
>>             program today that defeats the best effort of the best
>>             humans for 500 years, that has been done.  According to the
>>             article, what Alpha Zero has done is defeat the collective
>>             programming efforts of armies of professional programmers
>>             working with huge monetary rewards for the past 75 years,
>>             which is far more impressive than overpowering humans in
>>             chess.____
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             Something is still not being told here methinks.____
>>
>>             __ __
>>
>>             spike____
>>
>>
>>             _______________________________________________
>>             extropy-chat mailing list
>>             extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>             <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>>             http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>             <http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
>>
>>
>>
>>         _______________________________________________
>>         extropy-chat mailing list
>>         extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>         <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>>         http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>         <http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     --     https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/
>>     <https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     extropy-chat mailing list
>>     extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> >
>>     http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>     <http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec  8 15:47:34 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 07:47:34 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv07ko6pekkQ-3umogm9GKs84nwtTA1-8vLT38hydbsV8g@mail.gmail.com>
 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com> 
Message-ID: <007c01d3703b$de4f80d0$9aee8270$@att.net>

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 



>?I expect this will be proven true or false in the next couple weeks with first reports showing up anytime now.  StockFish owners will take those games and see if SF really does what the paper reports, given these settings.

 

>?I can't shake the suspicion that something is amiss.  Evidence to follow.

 

>?spike

 

 

Here?s the game that makes me suspish, game 5, Alpha playing white, Stockfish just played Kh8.  

 

Notice several things about this game: Alpha already has a huuuge positional advantage: Stock?s pieces are cowering in the corners, tripping over each other, nobody is offering mutual support, what a mess!  It?s hard to tell if the black pieces are even all on the same team or if they a terrified mob fleeing from the riot police.  Were I to see that position at a tournament or club, I would estimate the south player is 500 Elo over the hapless victim on the north.

 

Meanwhile Alpha has aaaalllll that room, all that wide open attack potential, her pieces are working together and getting along well with esprit de corps, offering mutual emotional support (in a way that wood is known to do if properly guided.) 

 

A human player on the north end of this board would probably just give up in dispair before playing Kh8, but she might try one more desperation move instead?

 



 

 

It probably wouldn?t work (nothing else does either) but the mighty Stockfish would at least offer f5.  Ja?

 

But she didn?t.  StockFish is reported to have played the hopelessly wimpy Kh8, which no human player would do because it is just too embarrassing.  It is like pleading for mercy to a T-rex.  That move just isn?t StockFishish.

 

Alpha played a sniper-bullet sac Bg5!

 

Humans among us, who saw that coming?  Neither did I.  It looks so absurd, neither man nor beast would spend a second on analyzing it.  But go to a board, check it out.  It works.  It?s the killer move in this position.

 

Alejandro, other chess geeks, what think ye?

 

spike

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 15:50:31 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 09:50:31 -0600
Subject: [ExI] incredible bridges - worth your time
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYubQURuFymMWaR3Dt8uzuuVCqKpcWpYEhUVF53b=QvKQ@mail.gmail.com>

http://features.weather.com/worlds-weirdest-bridges/
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec  8 15:22:30 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 07:22:30 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>



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

>...BTW, while this is, to me, the biggest newest in the history of chess, it follows naturally from their AlphaGo Zero paper published on Nature a whole month and a half ago: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24270...

Ja I agree.  At top level human chess, no one just shows up one day beating everybody.  They have a history.  One of the oddities of our time is having guys play their computers at home and get really good, then show up at a tournament already in really good form.  But this will be a first (as far as I know) for computer chess where a program without a past wins it all.  If it does what they describe, it is a couple hundred Elo above this year's champion (Houdini 6.03).  A gap that size at that level doesn't happen.  I don't think it ever has in the history of TCEC.

>...I don't think there's anything sinister in the whole affair, except for the usual DeepMind showboating...

If they did what they say they did, it ain't showboating, it's just telling it like it really is.  That will be so cool, assuming...

>... (and the usual question of why they denied StockFish their opening book and only gave it 1GB of hashtable memory)...

...assuming they didn't do something to StockFish to artificially weaken it.  I don't have StockFish, so I can't determine that question myself.

>...I expect people to indepedently replicate this, albeit at a slower pace due to limited resources, within the next couple of years...

I expect this will be proven true or false in the next couple weeks with first reports showing up anytime now.  StockFish owners will take those games and see if SF really does what the paper reports, given these settings.

I can't shake the suspicion that something is amiss.  Evidence to follow.

spike







From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 16:26:39 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 11:26:39 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
 <00a401d36f72$09b973e0$1d2c5ba0$@att.net>
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 <010e01d36f84$80e9d290$82bd77b0$@att.net>
 <01f201d36f8f$c2f6d880$48e48980$@att.net>
 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
 <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2eiAVq1gcWvxY_AjwacKQSLzykPDWBx3+8gR57Vo++VdQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 10:22 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> ...assuming they didn't do something to StockFish to artificially weaken
> it.  I don't have StockFish, so I can't determine that question myself.
>

Why not? It's free.

I expect this will be proven true or false in the next couple weeks with
> first reports showing up anytime now.  StockFish owners will take those
> games and see if SF really does what the paper reports, given these
> settings.
>
> I can't shake the suspicion that something is amiss.  Evidence to follow.
>

This is from the Stockfish Wikipedia entry, emphasis mine:

  *Stockfish versus AlphaZero[edit]*
*  In December 2017, AlphaZero (developed by Google's DeepMind division)
defeated Stockfish 8 after just 4 hours of self-play, with no access to
opening books or endgame tables, but with superior computing power
allocated to AlphaZero.[26][27][28] Each program was given one minute's
worth of thinking time per move. In 100 games from the normal starting
position AlphaZero won 25 games as White, won 3 as Black, and tied the
remaining 72.[29] In a series of twelve 100-game matches against Stockfish
starting from popular openings, Alphazero won 290, drew 886 and lost
24.[citation needed] The results of the tournaments do not indicate that
Alpha-Go is a superior chess engine - the Alpha-Go algorithm was allocated
more computing power for the games.[27] Google said they are not commenting
on the research until it is published in a journal.[29] The research also
has not yet been peer reviewed.[29]*

-Dave
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 16:39:19 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 10:39:19 -0600
Subject: [ExI] crispr
In-Reply-To: <CALHxhTQ2kC4CgZrY+QTTMJWDb++0t6OOiwzPzUtOxTenNBNAsg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEazZ7hDRGX+H-_VCOFpP2onMdUBxUn6eQn5yCcvOgkGng@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALHxhTQ2kC4CgZrY+QTTMJWDb++0t6OOiwzPzUtOxTenNBNAsg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZUuYVdNnUqZ2yQxS3mQNAAs_ZxMSLCt8v4gND788B8bQ@mail.gmail.com>

Where are you?  How are you going to get the price of the book to me?  Yes,
I will do it if you can repay me.

bill w

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 1:09 AM, Angel Z. Lopez <zoielsoy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi William,
>
> I would love to read that book. I read quite a bit on cell biology and
> chemistry. I have been studying GSH for many years now and enjoy books by
> Jimmy Gutman MD. Would it be too much of me to ask you if you could send me
> a copy of ?A Crack in Creation?? Im currently not able to purchase any new
> books and have been lacking reading material.
>
> Best,
> Angel
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 4:42 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> I am reading Doudna's new book "A Crack in Creation" and love it, though
>> I cannot follow the biochemistry and microbiology.  Great writing.  History
>> of CRISPR for ever 100 pages, followed by health implications, followed by
>> discussion of ethics, moral dilemmas, etc.
>>
>> All I can say is WOW.  I hope some of this will be applicable in my
>> lifetime and it seems that it might be it's going so fast.  I am betting on
>> her for a Nobel.
>>
>> A++ rating from me for this book.
>>
>> 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 giulio at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 17:24:00 2017
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 18:24:00 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Philosophy of Immortality: Ninavism, by Juliusz M. Kowalski
Message-ID: <CAKTCJye1P7QphcxPNS3WN=vxpZnSo47DQ8AE3UNRksdCQpFo-w@mail.gmail.com>

Philosophy of Immortality: Ninavism, by Juliusz M. Kowalski

In his 2017 book ?Ninavism: The Philosophy of Immortality,? Turing
Church contributor Juliusz M. Kowalski proposes a comprehensive,
near-systematic philosophy of immortality, from transhumanism to
transcendence...

https://turingchurch.net/philosophy-of-immortality-ninavism-by-juliusz-m-kowalski-8b418348ad52



From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec  8 18:07:38 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 10:07:38 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2eiAVq1gcWvxY_AjwacKQSLzykPDWBx3+8gR57Vo++VdQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
 <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>
 <CAM5aL2eiAVq1gcWvxY_AjwacKQSLzykPDWBx3+8gR57Vo++VdQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <011c01d3704f$6f085260$4d18f720$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sill
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 10:22 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:


>>>...assuming they didn't do something to StockFish to artificially weaken it.  I don't have StockFish, so I can't determine that question myself.

 

>?Why not? It's free. 

 

I have intentionally eschewed it Dave.  Chess is such a cool game, it can devour one?s life.  I might download it to analyze these games however, unless someone beats me to it on game 5.

 

 

>>?I can't shake the suspicion that something is amiss.  Evidence to follow.

 

I should not have used the term ?evidence? but rather ?indication.?  Evidence proves something, in sufficient quantities.  Indications suggest something, in sufficient quantities.  Read on please.

 

>?This is from the Stockfish Wikipedia entry, emphasis mine: 

 

  >?Stockfish versus AlphaZero[edit]

 

>? In a series of twelve 100-game matches against Stockfish starting from popular openings, Alphazero won 290, drew 886 and lost 24.[citation needed]

 

That would indicate an Elo rating for Alpha of about 3565, waaaay the heck above this year?s TCEC champion Houdini 6.03 with its paltry 3412.

 

 

>? The results of the tournaments do not indicate that Alpha-Go is a superior chess engine - the Alpha-Go algorithm was allocated more computing power for the games.[27] Google said they are not commenting on the research until it is published in a journal.[29] The research also has not yet been peer reviewed.[29]

 

-Dave

 

 

Dave, do you play?  What did you think of f5 in this position?  It still loses I think (everything does here) but loses slower than that awful Kh8.  Kh8 looks like something one would find in a basket of deplorables.  

 

Do you have StockFish loaded and ready to run?  Anyone else?

 

 



 

If you can find a way to get StockFish to offer Kh8 here instead of f5, we might be the first ones to indicate all is not what we are being told.

 

spike

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 18:51:50 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 12:51:50 -0600
Subject: [ExI] consciousness - reply to John
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaoJmOTcWODVTJx_ZTjsTW+48XGd-YHgopB2TFSrswsdg@mail.gmail.com>

Taking off from your idea that you cannot verify the consciousness of
others:

Then you cannot also verify:  emotions, thinking (conscious or
unconscious), any kind of mental state, whether hidden or possibly the
basis of some external behaviors.

So, theoretically, you are a solipsist.

But to get along in the world, mustn't you as 'as if' these other people
are experiencing similar things to what you experience when they act in
certain ways in certain situations?

In other words you are functionally a person who believes that the model
you have of your own interior experiences and external actions is similar
to that of the rest of the world.

Of course, you cannot even verify that your own model is accurate, since
self-deception is rampant in everyone, but you must act as if it is.

I think this makes you no different from anyone else.

bill w
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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 19:10:00 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 14:10:00 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <011c01d3704f$6f085260$4d18f720$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
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 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
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Message-ID: <CAM5aL2ffCGTRt-mOqd_yqcNC64qrZq=sws1VV=5AF0mbPLg8eQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 1:07 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> Dave, do you play?
>

No, not really.

-Dave
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec  8 19:26:50 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 11:26:50 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2ffCGTRt-mOqd_yqcNC64qrZq=sws1VV=5AF0mbPLg8eQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
 <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <017201d3705a$7fe3f610$7fabe230$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sill
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2017 11:10 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 1:07 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

 

Dave, do you play?

 

>?No, not really.

 

>?-Dave

 

 

Anyone here want to download StockFish and load in this position from game 5 please?  Dave do you have a site offering StockFish?

 



 

The king on g8, from where he has just moved to h8.  With king on g8, it is black to play.  

 

My human eye suggests f5 would give black a fighting chance at a draw, 30%-ish perhaps.  We can mess with the settings, but if we can?t find a way to get it to play Kh8, we have uncovered something (not clear what (I?m not making accusations against DeepMind (just indicating what looks like an operator error (or something.)))) 

 

I am not in StockFish?s league.  It?s a grandmaster, I am about an A rated on my best day, and I am having fewer best days now than I did in my best days.  Were I software, I would be called StinkFish.  But f5 looks like the Obi wan Kenobi move: our only hope.  Even a Hail Mary play is better than immediately going to hail.

 

spike

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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec  8 19:32:02 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 14:32:02 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <017201d3705a$7fe3f610$7fabe230$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
 <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>
 <CAM5aL2eiAVq1gcWvxY_AjwacKQSLzykPDWBx3+8gR57Vo++VdQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <011c01d3704f$6f085260$4d18f720$@att.net>
 <CAM5aL2ffCGTRt-mOqd_yqcNC64qrZq=sws1VV=5AF0mbPLg8eQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <017201d3705a$7fe3f610$7fabe230$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2crB0HqQkLiLdQXoQY338L-gV1Q-9VQWZCcmB=AWuz-iw@mail.gmail.com>

https://stockfishchess.org/download/

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 2:26 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Dave Sill
> *Sent:* Friday, December 08, 2017 11:10 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 1:07 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> Dave, do you play?
>
>
>
> >?No, not really.
>
>
>
> >?-Dave
>
>
>
>
>
> Anyone here want to download StockFish and load in this position from game
> 5 please?  Dave do you have a site offering StockFish?
>
>
>
>
>
> The king on g8, from where he has just moved to h8.  With king on g8, it
> is black to play.
>
>
>
> My human eye suggests f5 would give black a fighting chance at a draw,
> 30%-ish perhaps.  We can mess with the settings, but if we can?t find a way
> to get it to play Kh8, we have uncovered something (not clear what (I?m not
> making accusations against DeepMind (just indicating what looks like an
> operator error (or something.))))
>
>
>
> I am not in StockFish?s league.  It?s a grandmaster, I am about an A rated
> on my best day, and I am having fewer best days now than I did in my best
> days.  Were I software, I would be called StinkFish.  But f5 looks like the
> Obi wan Kenobi move: our only hope.  Even a Hail Mary play is better than
> immediately going to hail.
>
>
>
> 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 spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec  8 21:38:30 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 13:38:30 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <01c901d3706c$553d83b0$ffb88b10$@rainier66.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
 <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>
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 <01c901d3706c$553d83b0$ffb88b10$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <01e201d3706c$e4632cc0$ad298640$@att.net>

 

 

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

 



 

>?The king on g8, from where he has just moved to h8.  With king on g8, it is black to play.  

 

>?My human eye suggests f5 would give black a fighting chance at a draw, 30%-ish perhaps.  Spike

 

 

OK I worked on this from my own board, and now I change my assessment.  After f5, I now think black has a good chance of at least a draw in this awful position, 50% or better.  I am having a hard time seeing how StockFish could have played Kh8 in any of its versions regardless of the platform and settings.

 

f5 picks up a knight for the pawn, then once one of the black knights is sacked back, the position no longer puts the ug in ugly.

 

DeepMind has some esplainin to do?

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From alito at organicrobot.com  Sat Dec  9 05:06:06 2017
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 16:06:06 +1100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <01e201d3706c$e4632cc0$ad298640$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
 <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>
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 <CAM5aL2ffCGTRt-mOqd_yqcNC64qrZq=sws1VV=5AF0mbPLg8eQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <01c901d3706c$553d83b0$ffb88b10$@rainier66.com>
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Message-ID: <e18c056f-9a8f-8851-3bf5-16b7b4aa6eec@organicrobot.com>

On 09/12/17 08:38, spike wrote:
> OK I worked on this from my own board, and now I change my assessment.  
> After f5, I now think black has a good chance of at least a draw in this 
> awful position, 50% or better. ?I am having a hard time seeing how 
> StockFish could have played Kh8 in any of its versions regardless of the 
> platform and settings.
> 
> f5 picks up a knight for the pawn, then once one of the black knights is 
> sacked back, the position no longer puts the ug in ugly.
> 
> DeepMind has some esplainin to do?



I set the position up on StockFish 8. My computer doesn't have 64 CPU 
threads, so I only gave it one but I let it mull on it for a few hours 
to compensate. It flips between the two but it does seem to prefer Kh8 
after all.

It likes f5 for the first 3 seconds (14 ply), then switches to Kh8 till 
it reaches 35 ply at about 5 minutes (35 ply in 5 minutes!! I forget how 
insanely fast these things are), then back to f5 till depth 40, then Kh8 
only briefly, then back to f5 until depth 44 when it switches back to 
Kh8. This last switch is at around the 43 minutes mark on my computer 
and it sticks with it at least until depth 48 which is 3 hours on. The 
time control was 1 minute per move, and they were using around 100 more 
computation than I'm giving it, so that sounds about right.

It sees the f5 line going as follows:

20 ... f5 21. Qf4 fxe4 22. Bxe4 Rxf4 23. Bxh7+ Kxh7 24. Bxf4 c5 25. Re8 
Na5 26. Rae1 Bc4 27. Rxb8 Rxb8 28. Bxb8 Nc6 29. Bd6 Bxa2 30. f3 Be6 31. 
Kf2 Na5 32. Bf4 Kg8 33. Ra1 Nc6 34. Bd6 Kf7 35. g4 Bb3 36. Re1 Bc2 37. 
f4 Bd3 38. Ke3 c4 39. b3 b5 40. Ra1 Ke6 41. Bc5 a5 42. Bd4 Kf7 43. Bb6 
d5 44. Kd2 b4 45. Bxa5 which does look pretty tricky. If I play that 
through, its evaluation at the end is a solid 0.00, but it must have 
seen some improvement for white at higher depths from the original 
position, since it switches from this line that had an evaluation of 
-0.27 to the Kh8 line to which it assigns a -0.52.

The improvement I think is 27.Rf8 instead of Rxb8. When playing it 
through, if I give it some time on that move, it switches to Rf8 after a 
few minutes and its evaluation goes to +1.3 for white and rising. The 
line seems to be: 27. Rf8 Be6 28. Bd6 and then one of Nc4, Nac6 or g6 
but seems to lean towards g6, in which eventually Bxb8 is eventually 
played and then black loses another exchange by taking on that bishop 
(!!?) but white is left with only its a pawn. Here's the line:

28 ... g6 29. f4 Nc4 30. Bxb8 Nxb2 31. Re8 Nd3 32. Re3 c4 33. g4 Rxb8 
34. Rxb8 Nxf4 35. Kf2 Nd5 36. Re1 Bxg4 37. hxg6+ Kxg6 38. Re4 Be6 39. 
Rxc4 Ne7 40. Rc2 Nc6 41. Rh8 Nb4 42. Rc3 h5 43. Rg3+ Bg4 44. Ke3 Kf5 45. 
Ra8 a5 46. Rb8 Ke5 47. Kf2 Nd5 48. Rg1 Kd4 49. Rb1 Ke5 50. Kg3 Kd6 51. 
Rc1 Ke5 52. Kh4 Kf6 53. Rh8 Ke5 54. Kg3 Kd4, with an evaluation of 
around +2, which rises to +2.6 when you play it through but this 
position is so asymmetric and strange that I don't know what to think or 
how to go about winning it for white. Spike?

Here's the PV for Kh8 btw. I think that it just never finds Bg5, and 
it's not that it likes its position under Kh8, it just that it likes it 
less under f5 (I don't really understand Bg5. I'll leave that for 
another day)

20 ... Kh8 21. b4 d5 22. Nc3 Bc4 23. Bf4 Na6 24. Qd7 Nxb4 25. Qxb7 Qf5 
26. Re5 Qf6 27. Qe7 Nd3 28. Qxf6 gxf6 29. Re7 Nxf4 30. gxf4 Rg8 31. Rc1 
Rg4 32. Nd1 Rxf4 33. Ne3 b5 34. Rxf7 a5 35. Rc7 Rg8 36. Rxc6 Bxa2 37. 
Ra1 Bb3 38. Rc5 d4 39. Nf5 Rfg4 40. Ng3 d3 41. Bd5 Bxd5 42. Rxd5 R8g5 
43. Rxd3 a4 44. Kf1 Rf4 45. Re3 Kg7 46. Ne2 Rh4 47. Re7+.



From spike66 at att.net  Sat Dec  9 05:43:50 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 21:43:50 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <e18c056f-9a8f-8851-3bf5-16b7b4aa6eec@organicrobot.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAJrqPH9qv8zswU+ux1YL1AgS8zH1qD_BD3T14vTpxnMuTqjG3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMrAFTFUc3dZE5v7XaEyUMLWUtzdpBTOio_UCvZBAQ3mpC_fA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
 <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
 <006101d37032$a39b0e40$ead12ac0$@rainier66.com>
 <007a01d37038$5db61590$192240b0$@att.net>
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 <017201d3705a$7fe3f610$7fabe230$@att.net>
 <01c901d3706c$553d83b0$ffb88b10$@rainier66.com>
 <01e201d3706c$e4632cc0$ad298640$@att.net> <e18c056f-9a8f-8851-3bf5-16b7
 b4aa6eec@organicrobot.com>
Message-ID: <001701d370b0$b1182160$13486420$@att.net>


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Alejandro Dubrovsky
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2017 9:06 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

On 09/12/17 08:38, spike wrote:
> 
> f5 picks up a knight for the pawn, then once one of the black knights 
> is sacked back, the position no longer puts the ug in ugly.
> 
>>... DeepMind has some esplainin to do?



>...I set the position up on StockFish 8. My computer doesn't have 64 CPU threads, so I only gave it one but I let it mull on it for a few hours to compensate. It flips between the two but it does seem to prefer Kh8 after all...
>...d5 44. Kd2 b4 45. Bxa5 which does look pretty tricky. If I play that through, its evaluation at the end is a solid 0.00...
>...but this position is so asymmetric and strange that I don't know what to think or how to go about winning it for white. Spike?


I have a theory which exonerates DeepMind of any attempt at deception, a theory which I think is most likely the right one.

The DeepMind guys aren't really specifically chess guys, they are programmers.  So they aren't specifically trying to necessarily create the top chess program, but rather demonstrate a paradigm where software can teach itself, given a clear end goal.

Top level computer chess ends in draws most of the time, and seldom do they ever get to the crazy interesting unsymmetrical positional situations like that game 5.  So what I think the DeepMind guys did was to set StockFish to always play away from boring safe drawish situations.  Set it to where it hates draws, it will do risky or even inferior moves to play away from drawish situations.  That makes for fun coffeehouse chess, but at the top level, it loses.

My theory after spending most of the evening over the board is that f5 forces down this crazy game into a more sedate drawish situation, but is probably better for Stockfish in this position to go for a simplify down into a draw rather than keep playing for a win.  The f8 shot picks up a piece for a pawn, but then requires black to give back the piece a few moves later, which allows black to get the queens off the board, which connects black's rooks and de-uglifies black's terrible position, leading to a likely draw.

If I play it out over the board with black always playing into draws, black always gets a draw.  If I play for a win with black, then black always loses in that position (game 5 move 20.)  So... my theory is that DeepMind set StockFish to play for wins, perhaps not even realizing how much it disadvantages StockFish, being as they are not specifically chess guys.

If that theory is correct, here is the prediction: AlphaZero will compete in the next TCEC, or even sooner than that, will compete against this season's TCEC champion (Houdini 6.02) under conditions where the Houdini people control the settings.  Prediciton: Houdini will win the match.

Further prediction: a Houdini/Alpha match will be held in the next few weeks.

Another prediction: it will be great fun to watch, and have my undivided attention.

Conclusion: AlphaZero has accomplished something crazy cool here.  But the press is mostly getting it wrong.

spike 





From avant at sollegro.com  Sat Dec  9 20:40:42 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 12:40:42 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <4328d2c5729eb2869cc516b91ff6558f.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

In the interest of proper attribution, the below was posted by John Clark:

>> And even if the sphere is not infinite but just astronomically large
>> I don't see how
>> ?that idea
>> can explain why the universe was decelerating for the first 9 billion
>> years of its existence and only started accelerating 5 billion years
>> ago.

It was an accidental trimming although the OP should have been obvious,
since John is apparently the only person on the list who wants to discuss
my wacky ideas with me. :-P

Stuart LaForge




From spike66 at att.net  Sat Dec  9 21:29:56 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 13:29:56 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <012901d37132$60275410$2075fc30$@rainier66.com>
References: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <4328d2c5729eb2869cc516b91ff6558f.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <012901d37132$60275410$2075fc30$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <013101d37134$dc73c8d0$955b5a70$@att.net>




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

>...It was an accidental trimming although the OP should have been obvious,
since John is apparently the only person on the list who wants to discuss my
wacky ideas with me. :-P

Stuart LaForge


Stuart, we only would join in that discussion if we felt qualified.  I
don't.

spike




From msd001 at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 03:51:50 2017
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 22:51:50 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <013101d37134$dc73c8d0$955b5a70$@att.net>
References: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <4328d2c5729eb2869cc516b91ff6558f.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <012901d37132$60275410$2075fc30$@rainier66.com>
 <013101d37134$dc73c8d0$955b5a70$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJV2J9jkEsDDZFuPVEaYNjs8BQ+KGHhvKMXW_wWLJpKNw@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 9, 2017 4:33 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:


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

>...It was an accidental trimming although the OP should have been obvious,
since John is apparently the only person on the list who wants to discuss my
wacky ideas with me. :-P

Stuart LaForge

Stuart, we only would join in that discussion if we felt qualified.  I
don't.

spike


Seconded.  I would like to see the infographic though.  :)
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 09:21:49 2017
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 04:21:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <001701d370b0$b1182160$13486420$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 12:43 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> Conclusion: AlphaZero has accomplished something crazy cool here.
>

### AlphaZero is one of the lesser harbingers foretold by our list-prophet
Eliezer in the waning years of the last millennium. Very neat, especially
if you realize that compared to a human brain AlphaZero is a tiny-teensy
device that consists of hundreds of modules operating on a very simple
input (board game rules). It may be difficult to discern which neural
structures are equivalent to the modules in AlphaZero but I would venture
that the human brain is for the most part a bloated blob of millions of
such modules, fed on complex inputs but running on a very slow substrate.
These differences account for both the advantages and the disadvantages of
AlphaZero vis-a-vis the human: its incredible speed of learning and the for
now very limited scope of learning. Once you let AlphaZero grow big so it
can successfully feed on richer input, only the advantages will remain.

But AlphaZero is just a lesser harbinger: it is AutoML that gives me the
goose flesh. Again, the prophet Eliezer, about 25 years ahead of the time,
wrote once about "codic modality" - the AI's specialized/instinctual
ability to write software. AutoML is where the reinforcement learning
algorithm starts turning its gaze upon itself, and brings to bear the
advantages of speed to the building of a self. The step from mere awareness
to consciousness occurs when a mind turns its eye inward to model and
manage its own subunits, as the prophet Hofstadter said. AutoML is thus the
beginning of machine consciousness, an infinitesimal and limited spark, but
a spark nevertheless.

We will see more harbingers before the Day of Nerd Rapture comes. The end
and the beginning are nigh!

Rafa?
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From alito at organicrobot.com  Sun Dec 10 10:55:54 2017
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 21:55:54 +1100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <001701d370b0$b1182160$13486420$@att.net>
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On 09/12/17 16:43, spike wrote:
> 
> 
>> ...I set the position up on StockFish 8. My computer doesn't have 64 CPU threads, so I only gave it one but I let it mull on it for a few hours to compensate. It flips between the two but it does seem to prefer Kh8 after all...
>> ...d5 44. Kd2 b4 45. Bxa5 which does look pretty tricky. If I play that through, its evaluation at the end is a solid 0.00...
>> ...but this position is so asymmetric and strange that I don't know what to think or how to go about winning it for white. Spike?
> 
> 
> I have a theory which exonerates DeepMind of any attempt at
> deception, a theory which I think is most likely the right one.
> 
> The DeepMind guys aren't really specifically chess guys, they are
> programmers.  So they aren't specifically trying to necessarily
> create the top chess program, but rather demonstrate a paradigm where
> software can teach itself, given a clear end goal.

I looked them up: that Dharshan Kumaran that appears in the paper's list 
of authors appears to be a brittish GM (photos match up) and one of the 
founders of the company is a 2200. Relatively sure this is real.


From spike66 at att.net  Sun Dec 10 14:44:58 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 06:44:58 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <c290623f-21cd-7ede-7c88-6652665b01f5@organicrobot.com>
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-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Alejandro Dubrovsky

>>... I have a theory which exonerates DeepMind of any attempt at deception,

> a theory which I think is most likely the right one.
...
>>... The DeepMind guys aren't really specifically chess guys, they are 
> programmers.  So they aren't specifically trying to necessarily create 
> the top chess program, but rather demonstrate a paradigm where 
> software can teach itself, given a clear end goal... spike

>...I looked them up: that Dharshan Kumaran that appears in the paper's list
of authors appears to be a brittish GM (photos match up) and one of the
founders of the company is a 2200. Relatively sure this is real.
_______________________________________________


OK, well then, a grandmaster and a 2200 would know how large a handicap it
would be for top level software to be programmed to eschew draws if that is
what was done.

The way we will know if this is real is if Deep Mind lets AlphaZero compete
soon in public under controlled third-party observed conditions.  If I
understand it correctly, the machine learning part of the experiment created
the software, so they could allow the software to compete without revealing
the code.  If it really is playing in the same league with the big guys (and
beating StockFish where someone outside the company controls the SF
settings) then I too join the ranks of true believers.

I am very cautious now, for a truly desperately want it to be true.  I can't
quite shake the suspicion that all isn't as it appears with that oddball
result, 100 games with no losses.  Even in the drawn games, Alpha didn't
appear to be playing into the well-known drawish lines much.

Even if there is something amiss, I will declare that this collection of
games includes some really exciting chess.  There were plenty of beauties in
there.  In a way that also kinda raises suspicion: why aren't there several
boring old Ruy Lopez snoozefests?  Humanity discovered that opening back as
soon as the rules were solidified in the early 1500s, but this learning
software didn't seem to do much with it.

spike



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 15:27:34 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:27:34 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dh72z2L4da0Fp9ogZ9=yrmXyXckma=2KjgnC6nQF0h_g@mail.gmail.com>
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On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 9:19 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:


?> ?
> The problem is knowing when they're as intelligent as we are. AlphaGO
> isn't even close. If it wants to argue otherwise I'd happy to engage it.
>

?If it isn't even close to being intelligent how can it start from zero
knowledge and teach itself to play ?
 Chess
?.?
GO and Shogi
?in less than a day and easily beat ?any human who ever lived? If a human
had done the exact same thing you wouldn't call it intelligent you'd call
it genius. But its brain isn't squishy like our brain is so you say its not
even close. As for me, I say you're whistling past the graveyard.

 John K Clark

>
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 15:42:48 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:42:48 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <fd9345d9-e6cb-b6f3-872b-23497e18cff2@organicrobot.com>
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On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 3:35 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky <alito at organicrobot.com>
wrote:

?> ?
> The 4TPUs were what was used during playing time.



?And ?
Stockfish
?used?
 64 CPU cores
?.?

?> ?
> the usual DeepMind showboating


?There is nothing wrong with ?
 showboating
? if they've really got something to show, and they do.

 John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Dec 10 15:48:22 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 07:48:22 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv10=j6UNYF6WhVXjcPGa9shnpEBX6Rxo9TnUVvBu-Nm8A@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <006901d371ce$4fbfae00$ef3f0a00$@att.net>

 

 

On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

 

 

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 9:19 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com <mailto:sparge at gmail.com> > wrote:

 

 

?> ?>?The problem is knowing when they're as intelligent as we are. AlphaGO isn't even close. If it wants to argue otherwise I'd happy to engage it.

 

?>?If it isn't even close to being intelligent how can it start from zero knowledge and teach itself to play chess?in less than a day and easily beat ?any human who ever lived?  John K Clark  

 

Ja of course this is impressive, but consider all the ways this could be achieved that would look like it had trained itself from nothing in a day.  An eager press corps could report the program was given nothing but the rules of chess, when in reality it was given the StockFish chess engine with no opening book.  That would constitute being given chess rules only, if the phrase is interpreted broadly.  In fact, that would be a good approach to the problem: StockFish code is highly optimized already, so there is no need to reinvent that wheel.  

 

So imagine you some kind of training which slightly modifies StockFish, improves it, play a match with the original version.  Then you have made a huge contribution to machine learning, to computer chess, to human knowledge, with no intent to deceive.  The press might report it slightly incorrectly, which is what I vaguely suspect happened here.  Note I am not accusing anyone and cheering for the participants.  

 

Regardless of how this is proven out, I think DeepMind has done something cool here.  I just can?t convince myself the wilder claims made by the reporters are all correct.  

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Dec 10 15:57:20 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 07:57:20 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
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Message-ID: <007d01d371cf$9064cb10$b12e6130$@att.net>

 

 

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



?.?

 

?>>? ?the usual DeepMind showboating 

 

?>?There is nothing wrong with showboating if they've really got something to show, and they do? John K Clark

 

Ja.  If they really did what is reported, DeepMind?s paper is very modest and constrained.  In an odd way, this adds to my vague suspicion.  Had I written this code and it really came out of nowhere and performed 140 Elo over StockFish, I would declare myself god and demand humble worship from all geeks.  I would be going around healing the sick (of spreadsheet abuse) offering forgiveness of sins (such as still using DSL) and casting out demons (such as Fortran).

 

Regarding John?s comment, they definitely have something to show.  We just don?t know what that something is yet.  We will soon I hope.

 

spike

 

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From interzone at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 15:58:45 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:58:45 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <006901d371ce$4fbfae00$ef3f0a00$@att.net>
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I don't mean to be a wet blanket or come off disrespectful but this is not
that surprising given current deep learning/reinforcement tech.

I have no doubt what they have presented is accurate.

On Dec 10, 2017 10:54 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *On Behalf Of *John Clark
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 9:19 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> ?> ?>?The problem is knowing when they're as intelligent as we are.
> AlphaGO isn't even close. If it wants to argue otherwise I'd happy to
> engage it.
>
>
>
> ?>?If it isn't even close to being intelligent how can it start from zero
> knowledge and teach itself to play chess?in less than a day and easily beat
> ?any human who ever lived?  John K Clark
>
>
>
> Ja of course this is impressive, but consider all the ways this could be
> achieved that would look like it had trained itself from nothing in a day.
> An eager press corps could report the program was given nothing but the
> rules of chess, when in reality it was given the StockFish chess engine
> with no opening book.  That would constitute being given chess rules only,
> if the phrase is interpreted broadly.  In fact, that would be a good
> approach to the problem: StockFish code is highly optimized already, so
> there is no need to reinvent that wheel.
>
>
>
> So imagine you some kind of training which slightly modifies StockFish,
> improves it, play a match with the original version.  Then you have made a
> huge contribution to machine learning, to computer chess, to human
> knowledge, with no intent to deceive.  The press might report it slightly
> incorrectly, which is what I vaguely suspect happened here.  Note I am not
> accusing anyone and cheering for the participants.
>
>
>
> Regardless of how this is proven out, I think DeepMind has done something
> cool here.  I just can?t convince myself the wilder claims made by the
> reporters are all correct.
>
>
>
> 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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 16:24:41 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 11:24:41 -0500
Subject: [ExI] consciousness - reply to John
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaoJmOTcWODVTJx_ZTjsTW+48XGd-YHgopB2TFSrswsdg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEaoJmOTcWODVTJx_ZTjsTW+48XGd-YHgopB2TFSrswsdg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1y5dT_d=4ZbX+6H57WaLB5gG4cJkRP487OYyN9RJKMow@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 1:51 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

?> ?
> Taking off from your idea that you cannot verify the consciousness of
> others:
> ? ?
> Then you cannot also verify:  emotions, thinking (conscious or
> unconscious), any kind of mental state, whether hidden or possibly the
> basis of some external behaviors.
>

?The only mental state I have direct access to is my own, I can only infer
the mental state of others by observing their behavior and using a theory I
very strongly believe in, intelligent behavior implies consciousness. I
have strong logical reasons for thinking this theory is true but I admit it
falls short of a rigorous proof. But as far as my emotions are concerned
proof or no proof I have no doubt whatsoever that other people are
conscious except when they are behaving as if they are not, for example
when they're sleeping or under anesthesia or dead.

?> ?
> So, theoretically, you are a solipsist.
>

?I could not function if ?I thought I was the only conscious being in the
universe. I don't think true solipsists exist outside a looney bin, except
perhaps for philosophy professors, and even then only when they're in from
of freshman students and are trying to be provocative.


?> ?
> I think this makes you no different from anyone else.
>

Yes.... ?probably,.... but..... but I can't prove I'm not the only
conscious being in the universe, I can only show its unlikely. ?


?John K Clark?




>
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 16:34:41 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 11:34:41 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <006901d371ce$4fbfae00$ef3f0a00$@att.net>
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:48 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:



> ?>
> Ja of course this is impressive, but consider all the ways this could be
> achieved that would look like it had trained itself from nothing in a day.
> An eager press corps could report the program was given nothing but the
> rules of chess, when in reality it was given the StockFish chess engine
> with no opening book.  That would constitute being given chess rules only,
> if the phrase is interpreted broadly.  In fact, that would be a good
> approach to the problem: StockFish code is highly optimized already, so
> there is no need to reinvent that wheel.
>
>
?
I don't think that's what they did but if it was it would be just as
impressive.
? ?
It inputs computer code that has been worked on by human programers for
years and in less than a day it outputs computer code that does the same
thing only much better. Programs improving programs and improving them a
lot in just a few hours.

 John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Dec 10 17:08:24 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 09:08:24 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2BuP3EVJh4Sx5A1qr0sLJuHkOr6YiTsr9QYuMVRGEGZQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <011701d371d9$7dbdd0b0$79397210$@att.net>

 

 

On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:48 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

 

?> >?Ja of course this is impressive, but consider all the ways this could be achieved that would look like it had trained itself from nothing in a day.  An eager press corps could report the program was given nothing but the rules of chess, when in reality it was given the StockFish chess engine with no opening book.  That would constitute being given chess rules only, if the phrase is interpreted broadly.  In fact, that would be a good approach to the problem: StockFish code is highly optimized already, so there is no need to reinvent that wheel. 

 

?

>?I don't think that's what they did but if it was it would be just as impressive? John K Clark

 

On the contrary sir.

 

Once chess software achieved a certain level, it didn?t much matter how good it is: an ordinary consumer-level person cannot challenge it.  I see little point in paying for 3345 Elo software if 3317 software is free and open-source.  However? if DeepMind really has something that can learn from self-play, that software is worth jillions of dollars.  People who don?t care about chess that much would buy it and experiment with it.  I would.

 

Here?s what I am doing: reading carefully what the DeepMind paper claims they did, and comparing with what the press is reporting.  If you have time to blow on what could be the most important development in singularity theory since Eliezer left the ExI list, do a Google search on DeepMind Chess AlphaZero and look at the various articles.  Note that they are contradictory in some ways and many of the articles make claims that the DeepMind paper doesn?t make exactly.  The tech-press seems to have engaged in some examples of what I see here, hopeful thinking.  I did it myself: I hope it is right, I hope a computer figured out how to perform 160 Elo above the current version of StockFish and did it entirely by self-training.  But I suspect we don?t yet have the whole story.

 

That said, I would give DeepMind a few hundred bucks for that software based on what I think it did.  I might give them a couple thousand if they would show me their source code.  If we can come to understand the principles we think they used for self-play learning, it should be applicable to any zero-sum game.  It might even be possible to extend the paradigm to optimization games, gambling games and non-zero-sum games such as Diplomacy.

 

spike

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 17:13:18 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 11:13:18 -0600
Subject: [ExI] consciousness - reply to John
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1y5dT_d=4ZbX+6H57WaLB5gG4cJkRP487OYyN9RJKMow@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEaoJmOTcWODVTJx_ZTjsTW+48XGd-YHgopB2TFSrswsdg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1y5dT_d=4ZbX+6H57WaLB5gG4cJkRP487OYyN9RJKMow@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaUUyGRxQV9psOR04e3sYyGbCutA80AvhSCJLChAn8+eA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:24 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 1:51 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
> ?> ?
>> Taking off from your idea that you cannot verify the consciousness of
>> others:
>> ? ?
>> Then you cannot also verify:  emotions, thinking (conscious or
>> unconscious), any kind of mental state, whether hidden or possibly the
>> basis of some external behaviors.
>>
>
> ?The only mental state I have direct access to is my own, I can only
> infer the mental state of others by observing their behavior and using a
> theory I very strongly believe in, intelligent behavior implies
> consciousness. I have strong logical reasons for thinking this theory is
> true but I admit it falls short of a rigorous proof. But as far as my
> emotions are concerned proof or no proof I have no doubt whatsoever that
> other people are conscious except when they are behaving as if they are
> not, for example when they're sleeping or under anesthesia or dead.
>
> ?> ?
>> So, theoretically, you are a solipsist.
>>
>
> ?I could not function if ?I thought I was the only conscious being in the
> universe. I don't think true solipsists exist outside a looney bin, except
> perhaps for philosophy professors, and even then only when they're in from
> of freshman students and are trying to be provocative.
>
>
> ?> ?
>> I think this makes you no different from anyone else.
>>
>
> Yes.... ?probably,.... but..... but I can't prove I'm not the only
> conscious being in the universe, I can only show its unlikely. ?
>
>
> ?John K Clark?
>

?Then I think that I have your attitudes correct?.  They are identical to
mine, and probably nearly everyone else, unless some else in the group
replies au contraire. Like science itself, there is no certainty.

> ?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  Sun Dec 10 17:16:19 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 11:16:19 -0600
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2BuP3EVJh4Sx5A1qr0sLJuHkOr6YiTsr9QYuMVRGEGZQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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I don't think that's what they did but if it was it would be just as
impressive.
? ?
It inputs computer code that has been worked on by human programers for
years and in less than a day it outputs computer code that does the same
thing only much better. Programs improving programs and improving them a
lot in just a few hours.
 John K Clark
-----
Question:  are these supercomputers?  For the future - can we look forward
to computers self-correcting/improving in several seconds rather than a few
hours?  bill w

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:34 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:48 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>> ?>
>> Ja of course this is impressive, but consider all the ways this could be
>> achieved that would look like it had trained itself from nothing in a day.
>> An eager press corps could report the program was given nothing but the
>> rules of chess, when in reality it was given the StockFish chess engine
>> with no opening book.  That would constitute being given chess rules only,
>> if the phrase is interpreted broadly.  In fact, that would be a good
>> approach to the problem: StockFish code is highly optimized already, so
>> there is no need to reinvent that wheel.
>>
>>
> ?
> I don't think that's what they did but if it was it would be just as
> impressive.
> ? ?
> It inputs computer code that has been worked on by human programers for
> years and in less than a day it outputs computer code that does the same
> thing only much better. Programs improving programs and improving them a
> lot in just a few hours.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 17:19:08 2017
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 12:19:08 -0500
Subject: [ExI] consciousness - reply to John
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1y5dT_d=4ZbX+6H57WaLB5gG4cJkRP487OYyN9RJKMow@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAKrqSyE6T7gSfQyo-Pz4+eM=pCFVGzawndnaYhtr_BY-hOpppA@mail.gmail.com>

John, solipsism has absolutely zero content.

If you're the only conscious being, what is anything else?

Well, that would mean they're part of your consciousness.  However, they're
a part of your consciousness whose information can only be accessed by
query.

This is precisely the same as believing in multiple consciousnesses.

Pandeism/panendeism (depending on where the line you want to draw after God
is) is the key that allows solipsism and non-solipsism (multism?) to
coexist.

It also allows free will and determinism to coexist.

If you believe in parsimony as suggestive of truth, I recommend panendeism
(still pandeism, but considered after the big bang, i.e after the monad
incarnates its minimonad which is "God" for all purposes of this universe
and certainly has all the aspects of godliness except for primality.

The true God has no origin, there's a reason they say "I am what I am."
The true monadic God of our universe has no origin except for a (countably)
infinite amount of minimonads before it.

The God worshipped in Abrahamic religions is exactly half of that
minimonad, in particular that half which has positive divergence, aka
yang.  Life.  Ananke.  Electromagnetism and the weak force.

The other half is Tehom, chaos, yin, negative divergence.  Kronos.  Death.
Gravity and the strong force.
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From interzone at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 17:34:08 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 12:34:08 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaY2k4mCRNzDZ-d4xJsND_b6UZJmjFC+0D90VgNHPFgxg@mail.gmail.com>
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I would consider the iron used for training supercomputer level, but not
the hardware used to play on later.   The trained weights are what are hard
to reproduce on conventional hardware, and are the special sauce.

On Dec 10, 2017 12:29 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I don't think that's what they did but if it was it would be just as
> impressive.
> ? ?
> It inputs computer code that has been worked on by human programers for
> years and in less than a day it outputs computer code that does the same
> thing only much better. Programs improving programs and improving them a
> lot in just a few hours.
>  John K Clark
> -----
> Question:  are these supercomputers?  For the future - can we look forward
> to computers self-correcting/improving in several seconds rather than a few
> hours?  bill w
>
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:34 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:48 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> ?>
>>> Ja of course this is impressive, but consider all the ways this could be
>>> achieved that would look like it had trained itself from nothing in a day.
>>> An eager press corps could report the program was given nothing but the
>>> rules of chess, when in reality it was given the StockFish chess engine
>>> with no opening book.  That would constitute being given chess rules only,
>>> if the phrase is interpreted broadly.  In fact, that would be a good
>>> approach to the problem: StockFish code is highly optimized already, so
>>> there is no need to reinvent that wheel.
>>>
>>>
>> ?
>> I don't think that's what they did but if it was it would be just as
>> impressive.
>> ? ?
>> It inputs computer code that has been worked on by human programers for
>> years and in less than a day it outputs computer code that does the same
>> thing only much better. Programs improving programs and improving them a
>> lot in just a few hours.
>>
>>  John K Clark
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 interzone at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 17:39:40 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 12:39:40 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <011701d371d9$7dbdd0b0$79397210$@att.net>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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The code for an approximation of the Go version is freely available, but to
do the training,  you will need a lot of horsepower.

https://github.com/gcp/leela-zero

There aren't a ton of secrets in open source AI which is awesome.

On Dec 10, 2017 12:10 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *On Behalf Of *John Clark
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] alpha zero
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 10:48 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> ?> >?Ja of course this is impressive, but consider all the ways this
> could be achieved that would look like it had trained itself from nothing
> in a day.  An eager press corps could report the program was given nothing
> but the rules of chess, when in reality it was given the StockFish chess
> engine with no opening book.  That would constitute being given chess rules
> only, if the phrase is interpreted broadly.  In fact, that would be a good
> approach to the problem: StockFish code is highly optimized already, so
> there is no need to reinvent that wheel.
>
>
>
> ?
>
> >?I don't think that's what they did but if it was it would be just as
> impressive? John K Clark
>
>
>
> On the contrary sir.
>
>
>
> Once chess software achieved a certain level, it didn?t much matter how
> good it is: an ordinary consumer-level person cannot challenge it.  I see
> little point in paying for 3345 Elo software if 3317 software is free and
> open-source.  However? if DeepMind really has something that can learn from
> self-play, that software is worth jillions of dollars.  People who don?t
> care about chess that much would buy it and experiment with it.  I would.
>
>
>
> Here?s what I am doing: reading carefully what the DeepMind paper claims
> they did, and comparing with what the press is reporting.  If you have time
> to blow on what could be the most important development in singularity
> theory since Eliezer left the ExI list, do a Google search on DeepMind
> Chess AlphaZero and look at the various articles.  Note that they are
> contradictory in some ways and many of the articles make claims that the
> DeepMind paper doesn?t make exactly.  The tech-press seems to have engaged
> in some examples of what I see here, hopeful thinking.  I did it myself: I
> hope it is right, I hope a computer figured out how to perform 160 Elo
> above the current version of StockFish and did it entirely by
> self-training.  But I suspect we don?t yet have the whole story.
>
>
>
> That said, I would give DeepMind a few hundred bucks for that software
> based on what I think it did.  I might give them a couple thousand if they
> would show me their source code.  If we can come to understand the
> principles we think they used for self-play learning, it should be
> applicable to any zero-sum game.  It might even be possible to extend the
> paradigm to optimization games, gambling games and non-zero-sum games such
> as Diplomacy.
>
>
>
> 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 sparge at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 17:48:09 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 12:48:09 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaY2k4mCRNzDZ-d4xJsND_b6UZJmjFC+0D90VgNHPFgxg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 12:16 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

>
> Question:  are these supercomputers?  For the future - can we look forward
> to computers self-correcting/improving in several seconds rather than a few
> hours?
>

These are special purpose processors that aren't commercially available.
Individually they're not terribly impressive but when you apply thousands
of them in parallel, as they did during the training, they're pretty close
to super. Self improvement is instant and continuous, but in incredibly
tiny increments.

-Dave
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Dec 10 18:08:18 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:08:18 -0800
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH_myDAyyuA6eLG-yD59LV-49G9U2Y6SJu8r0jC28H_knw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <004201d371e1$dc08f070$941ad150$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2017 9:40 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

>?The code for an approximation of the Go version is freely available, but to do the training,  you will need a lot of horsepower. 

 

https://github.com/gcp/leela-zero

 

>?There aren't a ton of secrets in open source AI which is awesome?

 

 

 

Ja!  

 

A lot of the mainstream tech-geek news is claiming whatever DeepMind did does not require a lot of horsepower.  But I think otherwise.  If it really doesn?t require a lot of horsepower, this is a new day indeed.

 

In any case, we live in a time when bitcoin mining declines in payoff per CPU cycle over time.  Result: jillions of CPUs originally purchased for bitcoin mining have reached the point where the energy cost of mining doesn?t cover the value of the coins.  The breakeven point goes back and forth as the value of bitcoin fluctuates, but in general, many perfectly good processors are not useful currently for bitcoin and likely never will be again.  

 

So? 

 

If DeepMind has discovered really software self-learning and self-optimization, even if it takes huge computing resources, perhaps we can rent piles of CPU background cycles to run it from retired or repurposed bitcoin miners.

 

spike

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Dec 10 21:52:02 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 16:52:02 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv06_Cr3mU8eKa4egqbcnsPEJWni8y7VdL-HrOvxm8acWA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 1:53 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

?> ?
> My attempts to mathematically formulate my theory of causal cells has led
> me to an astonishing conclusion. The Schwarzschild metric predicts that
> causal cells and black holes are one and the same thing.We live in a black
> hole


?A few years ago the idea that ?causal cells and black holes were
equivalent was popular but the discovery that the universe is accelerating
made holding that view much more difficult. Recently I saw a picture of a
galaxy and the caption said it was
13.3 billion light years away, the most distant galaxy known. What that
meant is that the light traveled for 13.3 billion years before it entered
one of out telescopes, so that's what it looked like a very long time ago
not now,
and due to the expansion of the universe today it is much further away than
13.3 billion light years, in fact it is in a very real sense infinitely far
away today.

?The universe is not only expanding it is accelerating, ?so by now that
galaxy is moving away from us faster than the speed of light. Space itself
can move faster than light but spaceships can't so there is no way we could
ever visit that galaxy in finite time, we can no longer influence it in any
way and it can no longer influence us. And yet we can see it, so 13.3
billion years ago it must have been in our causal but it no longer is. If
the universe were a black hole and that galaxy were in our black hole 13.3
billion years ago it still should be. But it isn't. So black holes and
causal cells are not equivalent.  Because of that acceleration as time goes
on there is less and less stuff that we can influence and less and less
stuff that can influence us.


> ?> ?
> I have the math to back it up


?It's not the math I'm worried about its the physics.?


?John K Clark?
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From alito at organicrobot.com  Mon Dec 11 00:40:23 2017
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 11:40:23 +1100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2O3ZH4R0KoQRvC2SGGYoLkJVW-4_O0aBBvgdEkP-sFfQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <e138a91a-c418-6630-71bd-b5572c72c640@organicrobot.com>

On 11/12/17 02:42, John Clark wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 3:35 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky 
> <alito at organicrobot.com <mailto:alito at organicrobot.com>> wrote:
> 
>     ?> ?
>     The 4TPUs were what was used during playing time.
> 
> ?And ?
> Stockfish
> ?used?
>  ?64 CPU cores
> ?.?
> 

Yes. It's hard tell how the two compare. My guess is that the 4TPUs are 
doing way more FLOPs than the 64 cores. Just one of the latest TITAN Vs 
from Nvidia claims to do 110TF. There's no Intel beast going much past 
1TF, and each one of those has 24 CPUs, so max around 3TF in the 64 CPU 
cores. I think the assumption that a TPU designed to run neural-network 
code can at least keep up with a GPU at neural-network specific code is 
reasonable. All of that is a bit misleading since it's much easier to 
make close to full use of a CPU than it is of a GPU.

Not that any of that matters much really. Firstly, StockFish can't make 
use of GPUs/TPUs nor can any of the other engines. They have no use for 
FLOPs at all since it's all integer work.

More importantly, I don't think it really matters whether it can beat 
StockFish/Houdini/Komodo/whatever or whether it gets close. The 
impressiveness would diminish only very slightly in my eyes if it just 
got close (although I can see that it'd make a difference to others, and 
this is where the showboating comes in and where denying StockFish an 
opening book that it normally uses and this leading to those positions 
where StockFish is all tangled up due to a bad opening, just so that 
they can claim that it crushed StockFish and show off those strangling 
positions does make it a bit mischievious in my view). If all they'd 
done is learn to play chess up to around the level of StockFish 
completely by self-play in a short amount of time, using a generic 
algorithm which they also used to learn Go and Shogi, it'd still be huge 
news, and I completely believe that they've done that.



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Dec 11 01:48:26 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 19:48:26 -0600
Subject: [ExI] quick computer question
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEb0bcRCFZOUzAUtGpnnbD5UdFA-2R5XDf4nE1WoN+k5xg@mail.gmail.com>

I have a ten year old computer that I thinking of updating.  It has an amd
chip that runs somewhere over 3.

Most chips I see now run slower than that, but maybe are smarter?  If so
I'll forget the whole thing and just buy a new one.

Yeah or nay?

bill w
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From zoielsoy at gmail.com  Mon Dec 11 02:05:25 2017
From: zoielsoy at gmail.com (Angel Z. Lopez)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 02:05:25 +0000
Subject: [ExI] quick computer question
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEb0bcRCFZOUzAUtGpnnbD5UdFA-2R5XDf4nE1WoN+k5xg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEb0bcRCFZOUzAUtGpnnbD5UdFA-2R5XDf4nE1WoN+k5xg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALHxhTQU8uiPCQEijr27aV0z0_+vwWiaU2nE-wuGN0OvjJJUeA@mail.gmail.com>

Not so much about the core clock speed. Processors that have a slower speed
compensate by having more threads. Processors that have higher clock speeds
have fewer threads. More threads is better, it allows for information to
pass through much more quickly.
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Dec 11 02:38:50 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 20:38:50 -0600
Subject: [ExI] quote of the day
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaRmAOuxyHLuiGkQfcwzj9fsSGQOx1ph9Yobt0ykCVEJA@mail.gmail.com>

[image: Carl Sagan Thumbnail]In science it often happens that scientists
say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and
then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old
view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it
should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But
it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that
happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
<https://todayinsci.com/S/Sagan_Carl/SaganCarl-Quotations.htm>

bill w
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From alito at organicrobot.com  Mon Dec 11 03:09:32 2017
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 14:09:32 +1100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <e138a91a-c418-6630-71bd-b5572c72c640@organicrobot.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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On 11/12/17 11:40, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote:
> On 11/12/17 02:42, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 3:35 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky 
>> <alito at organicrobot.com <mailto:alito at organicrobot.com>> wrote:
>>
>> ??? ?> ?
>> ??? The 4TPUs were what was used during playing time.
>>
>> ?And ?
>> Stockfish
>> ?used?
>> ??64 CPU cores
>> ?.?
>>
> 

> Not that any of that matters much really. Firstly, StockFish can't make 
> use of GPUs/TPUs nor can any of the other engines. They have no use for 
> FLOPs at all since it's all integer work.
> 
No, that's wrong. The evaluation function is all floating multiplies 
that could be easily mapped to the matrix-style sum of dot products 
form. Now I'm not sure why the current chess engines don't use GPUs or 
even if they actually don't (StockFish doesn't for sure, but the others?)


From sparge at gmail.com  Mon Dec 11 12:36:01 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 07:36:01 -0500
Subject: [ExI] quick computer question
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEb0bcRCFZOUzAUtGpnnbD5UdFA-2R5XDf4nE1WoN+k5xg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEb0bcRCFZOUzAUtGpnnbD5UdFA-2R5XDf4nE1WoN+k5xg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2fWTLcPUwV-UFtxr2q2WeoaZM9TQbWmwAN5OVVH_dSKPg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 8:48 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I have a ten year old computer that I thinking of updating.  It has an amd
> chip that runs somewhere over 3.
>
> Most chips I see now run slower than that, but maybe are smarter?  If so
> I'll forget the whole thing and just buy a new one.
>
> Yeah or nay?
>

Nay. You'll be hard pressed to find a modern CPU that'll plug into a ten
year old PC. Modern CPUs are pushing more cores in favor of higher clock
speed--basically, more CPUs on the chip. They're not so much smarter but
there are more of them. A ten year old PC is also likely to have slower
memory and will be closer to hardware failure in disks, power supply, etc.

-Dave
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From alito at organicrobot.com  Mon Dec 11 12:43:11 2017
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 23:43:11 +1100
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <e138a91a-c418-6630-71bd-b5572c72c640@organicrobot.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <48034cfb-5657-f2bd-3cf9-6688649c8436@organicrobot.com>

On 11/12/17 11:40, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote:
> On 11/12/17 02:42, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 3:35 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky 
>> <alito at organicrobot.com <mailto:alito at organicrobot.com>> wrote:
>>
>> ??? ?> ?
>> ??? The 4TPUs were what was used during playing time.
>>
>> ?And ?
>> Stockfish
>> ?used?
>> ??64 CPU cores
>> ?.?
>>
> 
> Yes. It's hard tell how the two compare. My guess is that the 4TPUs are 
> doing way more FLOPs than the 64 cores. Just one of the latest TITAN Vs 
> from Nvidia claims to do 110TF. There's no Intel beast going much past 
> 1TF, and each one of those has 24 CPUs, so max around 3TF in the 64 CPU 
> cores. I think the assumption that a TPU designed to run neural-network 
> code can at least keep up with a GPU at neural-network specific code is 
> reasonable. All of that is a bit misleading since it's much easier to 
> make close to full use of a CPU than it is of a GPU.
> 
Last thing before I go back to lurking, 
http://learningsys.org/nips17/assets/slides/dean-nips17.pdf says each 
TPU v2 chip is 45 TFlops and each unit consists of 4 chips and gives you 
180TFlops. Either way, quite a beast.


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Dec 11 13:39:32 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 07:39:32 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Thanks Dave and Angel - quick computer question
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZ_zBedeQiGL+5Qu-XXU7bpuqcaCZTJUyfzpRseMYsz1g@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 8:05 PM, Angel Z. Lopez <zoielsoy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not so much about the core clock speed. Processors that have a slower
> speed compensate by having more threads. Processors that have higher clock
> speeds have fewer threads. More threads is better, it allows for
> information to pass through much more quickly.
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Thu Dec 14 00:28:39 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 18:28:39 -0600
Subject: [ExI] computer - attn. Dave and Angel
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEai326HNPmdsf6kcY4QkmJPb39URuv-vY8Zc3ne1LK9Yw@mail.gmail.com>

So I bought a refurb:  Lenovo ThinkCenter M72e,  small form factor, Intel
quad core i53470, up to 3.6 Ghz, 8 gb ram DDR3, 120 Gb SSD, 500Gb HDD, DVD
wifi Windows 10 pro

More than  bit of overkill for what I will use it for, but could not resist
at $350.

Thanks again

bill w
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From zoielsoy at gmail.com  Thu Dec 14 03:03:14 2017
From: zoielsoy at gmail.com (Angel Z. Lopez)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 03:03:14 +0000
Subject: [ExI] computer - attn. Dave and Angel
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEai326HNPmdsf6kcY4QkmJPb39URuv-vY8Zc3ne1LK9Yw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEai326HNPmdsf6kcY4QkmJPb39URuv-vY8Zc3ne1LK9Yw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALHxhTTX5TeWz8pviHN+8xHsLL66fw1_UXMUGiMbB0ELPNZMRQ@mail.gmail.com>

William I?m sure you will be golden for the years to come. Best.

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 7:31 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> So I bought a refurb:  Lenovo ThinkCenter M72e,  small form factor, Intel
> quad core i53470, up to 3.6 Ghz, 8 gb ram DDR3, 120 Gb SSD, 500Gb HDD, DVD
> wifi Windows 10 pro
>
> More than  bit of overkill for what I will use it for, but could not
> resist at $350.
>
> Thanks again
>
> 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 cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com  Thu Dec 14 04:38:03 2017
From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 02:38:03 -0200
Subject: [ExI] computer - attn. Dave and Angel
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEai326HNPmdsf6kcY4QkmJPb39URuv-vY8Zc3ne1LK9Yw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEai326HNPmdsf6kcY4QkmJPb39URuv-vY8Zc3ne1LK9Yw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <170b6e95-7c18-2327-5dc8-ea44660dfbe6@gmail.com>

Now ditch Windoze and install Linux Mint 18.3 in it

On 13/12/2017 22:28, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
> So I bought a refurb:? Lenovo ThinkCenter M72e,? small form factor, 
> Intel quad core i53470, up to 3.6 Ghz, 8 gb ram DDR3, 120 Gb SSD, 
> 500Gb HDD, DVD wifi Windows 10 pro
>
> More than? bit of overkill for what I will use it for, but could not 
> resist at $350.
>
> Thanks again
>
> 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 interzone at gmail.com  Thu Dec 14 12:53:02 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 07:53:02 -0500
Subject: [ExI] alpha zero
In-Reply-To: <48034cfb-5657-f2bd-3cf9-6688649c8436@organicrobot.com>
References: <001001d36f00$8ac3fea0$a04bfbe0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv0CkzkBAqRcfskLEcmZxaKRnypDsKyCt74ZYWGJJ1024w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAJrqPH_U21M5Nr-XB0zu2fUHRDp=m1ScNf=yrLk2NT7RWwdLtw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJrqPH8dHY96oG+dX2-NgQAAzYgHviRxtZYfyj5Wu-GphMVo=w@mail.gmail.com>

More on Deepmind and its peculiar gameplay from a human POV:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609736/alpha-zeros-alien-chess-shows-the-power-and-the-peculiarity-of-ai/

On Dec 11, 2017 8:02 AM, "Alejandro Dubrovsky" <alito at organicrobot.com>
wrote:

> On 11/12/17 11:40, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote:
>
>> On 11/12/17 02:42, John Clark wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 3:35 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky <
>>> alito at organicrobot.com <mailto:alito at organicrobot.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     ?> ?
>>>     The 4TPUs were what was used during playing time.
>>>
>>> ?And ?
>>> Stockfish
>>> ?used?
>>>   64 CPU cores
>>> ?.?
>>>
>>>
>> Yes. It's hard tell how the two compare. My guess is that the 4TPUs are
>> doing way more FLOPs than the 64 cores. Just one of the latest TITAN Vs
>> from Nvidia claims to do 110TF. There's no Intel beast going much past 1TF,
>> and each one of those has 24 CPUs, so max around 3TF in the 64 CPU cores. I
>> think the assumption that a TPU designed to run neural-network code can at
>> least keep up with a GPU at neural-network specific code is reasonable. All
>> of that is a bit misleading since it's much easier to make close to full
>> use of a CPU than it is of a GPU.
>>
>> Last thing before I go back to lurking, http://learningsys.org/nips17/
> assets/slides/dean-nips17.pdf says each TPU v2 chip is 45 TFlops and each
> unit consists of 4 chips and gives you 180TFlops. Either way, quite a beast.
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Thu Dec 14 18:40:03 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 10:40:03 -0800
Subject: [ExI] nasa exoplanet announcement
Message-ID: <004a01d3750a$f5775e80$e0661b80$@att.net>

 

 

 

 

 

From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2017 10:07 AM
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: nasa exoplanet announcement

 

 

>.NASA is in the process of announcing that the record has been tied: it
found a star with 8 planets.

 

https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

 

>.Hit the Kepler tab.

 

>.They are also claiming that this one was found using a neural network
sifting thru archival data.  They didn't offer any details on that.

 

>.Wait, hold it, they just brought on a guy from Google AI to explain it.
They are in the process of saying this was done by AI.  Coooool!  spike

 

 

WOWsers, NASA just gave a mind-blowing announcement on Kepler, wooooohoooo!
They are claiming GoogleAI used the same software it claims can tell the
difference between a dog and a cat, then set that on the task of recognizing
exo-transits.  As far as I know, this is the first time AI has found an exo.

 

This is so cool: we often hear the words that aerospace guys really find
distasteful but true just the same: there isn't much point in building new
orbiting instruments when we don't have the budget to even look at most of
the data already collected and archived by instruments defunct for years or
even decades.  When I say most, I mean some instruments have had less than a
tenth of a percent of the data ever seen by bio-eyeballs.  

 

So. It looks to me like the next great wave in astronomy is to somehow
automate the process of digging thru skerjillions of MB of archived data.

 

Aside sorta: picture in your mind an archaeologist.  You see this guy
pecking away at rocks and sifting thru gravel at some remote site, sure.
But those are generally grad student slave labor doing that.  We have museum
cabinets filled with stuff they dug up decades ago, didn't know what it was,
filed it away, graduated, the stuff is still there to this day.
Archaeologists who go thru museums looking at what is already there make
huge discoveries, such as Steven Jay Gould wrote about in Wonderful Life in
1989, a book which rocked my world.  Those fossils were extracted in the
early 1900s, but Wolcott didn't know what they were so they ended up
forgotten in a museum until discovered decades later by Alberto Simonetta,
durn near by chance.  

 

Now we astronomy geeks want to know: how many Burgess Shale-magnitude
discoveries are sitting there as lonely bits on DVDs, waiting for someone or
something to look at them and figure out what it is telling us?  Today we
heard of the first case of an AI finding an exo-planet.  We don't have the
budget for arbitrarily many grad students, but we can replicate this AI
arbitrarily many times, and they never get bored, tired, drunk, hungry,
sleepy, stoned, distracted by some sexy grad student, none of that.  This is
a new day.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Dec 14 18:06:40 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 10:06:40 -0800
Subject: [ExI] nasa exoplanet announcement
Message-ID: <004101d37506$4b8f9170$e2aeb450$@att.net>

 

NASA is in the process of announcing that the record has been tied: it found
a star with 8 planets.

 

https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

 

Hit the Kepler tab.

 

They are also claiming that this one was found using a neural network
sifting thru archival data.  They didn't offer any details on that.

 

Wait, hold it, they just brought on a guy from Google AI to explain it.
They are in the process of saying this was done by AI.  Coooool!

 

spike

 

 

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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 03:43:19 2017
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 22:43:19 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv06_Cr3mU8eKa4egqbcnsPEJWni8y7VdL-HrOvxm8acWA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv06_Cr3mU8eKa4egqbcnsPEJWni8y7VdL-HrOvxm8acWA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyGVnLQ9LpOBfR5Z0ad0LAHjMxT7mx8BZYsKK37YDhNUhQ@mail.gmail.com>

*

Stuart,

I talk a lot here about yin and yang.  Not trying to be hand-wavy...only
inasmuch as all empirical observations in the modern western oeuvre still
are based on, er, turtles.

**

Your interaction of 2 black holes is the creator of our universe of
duality: consuming versus consumed.  Inwards-pulling versus
outwards-seeking.  Death versus life.  Entropy versus extropy.

Consciousness, aka God, is the symmetry for death.  The stuff going
outwards from the singularity.  Perhaps.  Makes sense to me.

Still not sure where the beginning is.

***

W
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 13:46:33 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 07:46:33 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyGVnLQ9LpOBfR5Z0ad0LAHjMxT7mx8BZYsKK37YDhNUhQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <b0455472cff48ef7b3866314600cc422.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv06_Cr3mU8eKa4egqbcnsPEJWni8y7VdL-HrOvxm8acWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyGVnLQ9LpOBfR5Z0ad0LAHjMxT7mx8BZYsKK37YDhNUhQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbhW+dTXaMWCV7c+GAJ1NPbZGSJZEFy+T8gGnYoybg66Q@mail.gmail.com>

will wrote    Consciousness, aka God, is the symmetry for death.  The stuff
going outwards from the singularity.  Perhaps.  Makes sense to me.

Still not sure where the beginning is.

?How can you be sure of anything?

bill w?


On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 9:43 PM, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

> *
>
> Stuart,
>
> I talk a lot here about yin and yang.  Not trying to be hand-wavy...only
> inasmuch as all empirical observations in the modern western oeuvre still
> are based on, er, turtles.
>
> **
>
> Your interaction of 2 black holes is the creator of our universe of
> duality: consuming versus consumed.  Inwards-pulling versus
> outwards-seeking.  Death versus life.  Entropy versus extropy.
>
> Consciousness, aka God, is the symmetry for death.  The stuff going
> outwards from the singularity.  Perhaps.  Makes sense to me.
>
> Still not sure where the beginning is.
>
> ***
>
> 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  Fri Dec 15 15:22:09 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 09:22:09 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>

1.6% of college football players make it to the pros.  So what?  So after
perhaps making tens of millions of dollars for their schools winning
conference titles, bowl games, the vast majority of the players graduate
having gotten mostly nothing in return.

It is time to pay the players.  Where else do we see employees contribute a
great deal to the organization's bottom line and get a pittance in return?

The idea that they are amateurs is ludicrous.  Even the Olympic
organization got the right idea on that awhile back.  How much has Michael
Phelps put in the bank?

It is not a question of having the money. It's a question of sharing it.
The players and coaches earned it.  The coaches certainly get their share
and their schools too.  The real money makers get next to nothing -
tuition, books, a very few spending dollars.

This blatant hypocrisy needs to stop.  This is slave labor, isn't it?
Where else can they market their skills?  Nowhere.

Outside of actual slavery, I can't think of another situation that is this
unfair.  Absolutely unAmerican.

William F. Wallace
Brandon MS
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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 15:40:20 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 10:40:20 -0500
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 10:22 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> 1.6% of college football players make it to the pros.  So what?  So after
> perhaps making tens of millions of dollars for their schools winning
> conference titles, bowl games, the vast majority of the players graduate
> having gotten mostly nothing in return.
>
> It is time to pay the players.  Where else do we see employees contribute
> a great deal to the organization's bottom line and get a pittance in return?
>
> The idea that they are amateurs is ludicrous.  Even the Olympic
> organization got the right idea on that awhile back.  How much has Michael
> Phelps put in the bank?
>
> It is not a question of having the money. It's a question of sharing it.
> The players and coaches earned it.  The coaches certainly get their share
> and their schools too.  The real money makers get next to nothing -
> tuition, books, a very few spending dollars.
>
> This blatant hypocrisy needs to stop.  This is slave labor, isn't it?
> Where else can they market their skills?  Nowhere.
>
> Outside of actual slavery, I can't think of another situation that is this
> unfair.  Absolutely unAmerican.
>

The better players get athletic scholarships. That's substantial. Athletics
are voluntary: nobody is making anyone play football. Ask players why they
play. I think most just enjoy playing the game and the experience of being
a varsity athlete. I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying athletes
but I hardly think it's comparable to slavery.

-Dave
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 16:08:28 2017
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 08:08:28 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>

On Dec 15, 2017, at 7:40 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 10:22 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 1.6% of college football players make it to the pros. 

I think the same ratio also applies to other parts of the entertainment industry. After all, sports are entertainment. Not everyone take drama classes in college is going to earn a living in drama, for instance.

>> So what?  So after perhaps making tens of millions of dollars for their schools winning conference titles, bowl games, the vast majority of the players graduate having gotten mostly nothing in return.
>> 
>> It is time to pay the players.  Where else do we see employees contribute a great deal to the organization's bottom line and get a pittance in return?
>> 
>> The idea that they are amateurs is ludicrous.  Even the Olympic organization got the right idea on that awhile back.  How much has Michael Phelps put in the bank?
>> 
>> It is not a question of having the money. It's a question of sharing it.  The players and coaches earned it.  The coaches certainly get their share and their schools too.  The real money makers get next to nothing - tuition, books, a very few spending dollars.
>> 
>> This blatant hypocrisy needs to stop.  This is slave labor, isn't it?  Where else can they market their skills?  Nowhere.
>> 
>> Outside of actual slavery, I can't think of another situation that is this unfair.  Absolutely unAmerican.
> 
> The better players get athletic scholarships. That's substantial. Athletics are voluntary: nobody is making anyone play football. Ask players why they play. I think most just enjoy playing the game and the experience of being a varsity athlete. I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying athletes but I hardly think it's comparable to slavery.

By the way, American football might be voluntary for the players, but it?s not voluntary for the taxpayers at the high school, college, and pro levels:

https://www.reason.com/blog/2017/09/07/stop-subsidizing-football/

I think even better than pay sharing deals would be dismantling all these subsidies. By the way, recall this story:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-stadium-arms-race-snap-story.html

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
http://mybook.to/SandTrap


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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 16:55:42 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 10:55:42 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>

I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying athletes but I hardly think
it's comparable to slavery.

-Dave

Yes, they are volunteers, but the real slaves made big money for the
plantation owners and received very little in return.  ESPN paid NCAA $470
millions of dollars and the players get a scholarship?  That IS comparable
to actual slaves.

bill w

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 9:40 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 10:22 AM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 1.6% of college football players make it to the pros.  So what?  So after
>> perhaps making tens of millions of dollars for their schools winning
>> conference titles, bowl games, the vast majority of the players graduate
>> having gotten mostly nothing in return.
>>
>> It is time to pay the players.  Where else do we see employees contribute
>> a great deal to the organization's bottom line and get a pittance in return?
>>
>> The idea that they are amateurs is ludicrous.  Even the Olympic
>> organization got the right idea on that awhile back.  How much has Michael
>> Phelps put in the bank?
>>
>> It is not a question of having the money. It's a question of sharing it.
>> The players and coaches earned it.  The coaches certainly get their share
>> and their schools too.  The real money makers get next to nothing -
>> tuition, books, a very few spending dollars.
>>
>> This blatant hypocrisy needs to stop.  This is slave labor, isn't it?
>> Where else can they market their skills?  Nowhere.
>>
>> Outside of actual slavery, I can't think of another situation that is
>> this unfair.  Absolutely unAmerican.
>>
>
> The better players get athletic scholarships. That's substantial.
> Athletics are voluntary: nobody is making anyone play football. Ask players
> why they play. I think most just enjoy playing the game and the experience
> of being a varsity athlete. I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying
> athletes but I hardly think it's comparable to slavery.
>
> -Dave
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Fri Dec 15 16:57:23 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 10:57:23 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>

dan wrote - Not everyone take drama classes in college is going to earn a
living in drama, for instance.

Aw, c'mon - how much money does the drama dept. earn for the college?
Geez.  bill w

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 10:08 AM, Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Dec 15, 2017, at 7:40 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 10:22 AM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 1.6% of college football players make it to the pros.
>>
>
> I think the same ratio also applies to other parts of the entertainment
> industry. After all, sports are entertainment. Not everyone take drama
> classes in college is going to earn a living in drama, for instance.
>
> So what?  So after perhaps making tens of millions of dollars for their
>> schools winning conference titles, bowl games, the vast majority of the
>> players graduate having gotten mostly nothing in return.
>>
>> It is time to pay the players.  Where else do we see employees contribute
>> a great deal to the organization's bottom line and get a pittance in return?
>>
>> The idea that they are amateurs is ludicrous.  Even the Olympic
>> organization got the right idea on that awhile back.  How much has Michael
>> Phelps put in the bank?
>>
>> It is not a question of having the money. It's a question of sharing it.
>> The players and coaches earned it.  The coaches certainly get their share
>> and their schools too.  The real money makers get next to nothing -
>> tuition, books, a very few spending dollars.
>>
>> This blatant hypocrisy needs to stop.  This is slave labor, isn't it?
>> Where else can they market their skills?  Nowhere.
>>
>> Outside of actual slavery, I can't think of another situation that is
>> this unfair.  Absolutely unAmerican.
>>
>
> The better players get athletic scholarships. That's substantial.
> Athletics are voluntary: nobody is making anyone play football. Ask players
> why they play. I think most just enjoy playing the game and the experience
> of being a varsity athlete. I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying
> athletes but I hardly think it's comparable to slavery.
>
>
> By the way, American football might be voluntary for the players, but it?s
> not voluntary for the taxpayers at the high school, college, and pro levels:
>
> https://www.reason.com/blog/2017/09/07/stop-subsidizing-football/
>
> I think even better than pay sharing deals would be dismantling all these
> subsidies. By the way, recall this story:
>
> http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-stadium-arms-race-snap-story.html
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
> http://mybook.to/SandTrap
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 17:07:41 2017
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 09:07:41 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <03CDCB52-0B42-4FA1-AE44-646811192DD5@gmail.com>

On Dec 15, 2017, at 8:55 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying athletes but I hardly think it's comparable to slavery.
> 
> -Dave
> 
> Yes, they are volunteers, but the real slaves made big money for the plantation owners and received very little in return.  ESPN paid NCAA $470 millions of dollars and the players get a scholarship?  That IS comparable to actual slaves.

The essential feature of slavery is that it?s not voluntary. College athletes weren?t captured and forced into servitude. They actually want to be on the team and usually work hard to get there. I don?t recall Africans voluntarily hopping on the slave ships to be brought to plantations in the Caribbean, the US, etc.

And, again, you really want to do something about this, help to dismantle the subsidies for sports. I don?t see why anyone should be forced to subsidized this stuff (at all levels, from high school to pro) ? whether that money goes to the athletes or other folks in their organizations.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
http://mybook.to/SandTrap


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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 17:08:38 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:08:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 11:55 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Yes, they are volunteers, but the real slaves made big money for the
> plantation owners and received very little in return.  ESPN paid NCAA $470
> millions of dollars and the players get a scholarship?  That IS comparable
> to actual slaves.
>

In the sense that they're poorly compensated, yes. But slavery is about a
zillion times worse than voluntarily playing a game.

-Dave
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 17:38:50 2017
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 09:38:50 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>

> On Dec 15, 2017, at 8:57 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> dan wrote - Not everyone take drama classes in college is going to earn a living in drama, for instance.
> 
> Aw, c'mon - how much money does the drama dept. earn for the college?  Geez.  bill w

True, though it?s questionable how much money is ?earned? in American college football given the heavy subsidies. If building stadiums and the sports programs had no government subsidies, what do you think would happen? (Frankly, I?ve never understood why education and sports are so tightly linked together.)

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
http://mybook.to/SandTrap



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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec 15 17:29:36 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 09:29:36 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>

 

 

> On Behalf Of Dave Sill
Subject: Re: [ExI] letter

 

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 11:55 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Yes, they are volunteers, but the real slaves made big money for the plantation owners and received very little in return.  ESPN paid NCAA $470 millions of dollars and the players get a scholarship?  That IS comparable to actual slaves.

 

>?In the sense that they're poorly compensated, yes. But slavery is about a zillion times worse than voluntarily playing a game.  -Dave

 

 

 

As in everything else, it is all about supply and demand.  Colleges have a nearly inexhaustible supply of good high school level athletes with big dreams.  Currently they compete and do pay (in one way or another) the high-end talent in big positions, for the competition for that talent is intense.  Like pro-sports, the compensation they offer athletes varies widely.  Colleges really can?t do anything about that.  If they offer the same compensation package to all their players, they will end up with all linemen and no QB.

 

Good athletic talent costs money.  The more talent, the more it costs, and the more tickets the college makes.  It really is first-tier professional sports.  The players are already paid what they cost.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 18:00:41 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:00:41 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
 <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEb7uzyygNY9kZ73s8uJjcnzP-rDrUvHmXcHa7vz6Sq13Q@mail.gmail.com>

spike wrote - Good athletic talent costs money.  The more talent, the more
it costs, and the more tickets the college makes.  It really is first-tier
professional sports.  The players are already paid what they cost.

---------

But not what they are worth.  bill w

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 11:29 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *>* *On Behalf Of *Dave Sill
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] letter
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 11:55 AM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, they are volunteers, but the real slaves made big money for the
> plantation owners and received very little in return.  ESPN paid NCAA $470
> millions of dollars and the players get a scholarship?  That IS comparable
> to actual slaves.
>
>
>
> >?In the sense that they're poorly compensated, yes. But slavery is about
> a zillion times worse than voluntarily playing a game.  -Dave
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> As in everything else, it is all about supply and demand.  Colleges have a
> nearly inexhaustible supply of good high school level athletes with big
> dreams.  Currently they compete and do pay (in one way or another) the
> high-end talent in big positions, for the competition for that talent is
> intense.  Like pro-sports, the compensation they offer athletes varies
> widely.  Colleges really can?t do anything about that.  If they offer the
> same compensation package to all their players, they will end up with all
> linemen and no QB.
>
>
>
> Good athletic talent costs money.  The more talent, the more it costs, and
> the more tickets the college makes.  It really is first-tier professional
> sports.  The players are already paid what they cost.
>
>
>
> 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 foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 18:02:40 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:02:40 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZ2AQqTc8ipwTmRhcEzV4RaQpJRE6u9GyEw+sBV9aaYnw@mail.gmail.com>

dan - (Frankly, I?ve never understood why education and sports are so
tightly linked together.)

It's a guy thing - macho.  If those big colleges like Alabama, are getting
fed $$$ for sports I'd be surprised.  bill w

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 11:38 AM, Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Dec 15, 2017, at 8:57 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> dan wrote - Not everyone take drama classes in college is going to earn a
> living in drama, for instance.
>
> Aw, c'mon - how much money does the drama dept. earn for the college?
> Geez.  bill w
>
>
> True, though it?s questionable how much money is ?earned? in American
> college football given the heavy subsidies. If building stadiums and the
> sports programs had no government subsidies, what do you think would
> happen? (Frankly, I?ve never understood why education and sports are so
> tightly linked together.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
> http://mybook.to/SandTrap
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 18:05:01 2017
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 13:05:01 -0500
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhqPZd_6jyQbhQv5MbBifkCKcyGE0yn2Movu7GEXYa8oA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 11:55 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying athletes but I hardly
> think it's comparable to slavery.
>
> -Dave
>
> Yes, they are volunteers, but the real slaves made big money for the
> plantation owners and received very little in return.  ESPN paid NCAA $470
> millions of dollars and the players get a scholarship?  That IS comparable
> to actual slaves.
>
> ### This kind of inflammatory rhetoric insults all slaves who were ever
whipped, raped, tortured or killed.

Rafal
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 18:58:54 2017
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 10:58:54 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEb7uzyygNY9kZ73s8uJjcnzP-rDrUvHmXcHa7vz6Sq13Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
 <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb7uzyygNY9kZ73s8uJjcnzP-rDrUvHmXcHa7vz6Sq13Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <D2206579-66DD-4E7D-9C13-87A8A7117D32@gmail.com>

On Dec 15, 2017, at 10:00 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> spike wrote - Good athletic talent costs money.  The more talent, the more it costs, and the more tickets the college makes.  It really is first-tier professional sports.  The players are already paid what they cost.
> 
> ---------
> 
> But not what they are worth.  bill w
> 

Spike pointed out that it?s supply and demand. I think the same is generally true across the entertainment industry: lots of people _want_ to do it, so the supply is quite high (compared with other activities). (I stress ?want? because that?s unlike slavery. Slaves didn?t want to work on plantations in Jamaica and the South. In fact, they had to be guarded from running away.)

A bigger problem might be that too many people believe that they can be part of that tiny percentage that are able to make a paying career out of this. (And I?m sure many do it for love of the activity. But I?ve seen so many who seem to really think they have a chance here.)

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
http://mybook.to/SandTrap
 
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 19:11:01 2017
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 11:11:01 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZ2AQqTc8ipwTmRhcEzV4RaQpJRE6u9GyEw+sBV9aaYnw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ2AQqTc8ipwTmRhcEzV4RaQpJRE6u9GyEw+sBV9aaYnw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8B718247-35CB-440B-9019-B76ECA84083B@gmail.com>

On Dec 15, 2017, at 10:02 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> dan - (Frankly, I?ve never understood why education and sports are so tightly linked together.)
> 
> It's a guy thing - macho. 

Why isn?t hunting part of higher education then? That?s usually considered macho. 

> If those big colleges like Alabama, are getting fed $$$ for sports I'd be surprised.  bill w

I wouldn?t be surprised because federal money does go into higher education, the (federal) military at least subsidizes some of the patriot nonsense at games, and usually stadiums are built with tax money. This isn?t necessarily all at the federal level. State and local tax money subsidize stadiums and sports programs. Again, cut those off ? the plumb-line libertarian position ? and my guess is much would change here. (Specifically, owners and managers wouldn?t have as much to siphon off from revenues of these subsidies went away.)

And U of Alabama is a public university, no?   

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
http://mybook.to/SandTrap


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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 19:42:25 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 13:42:25 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <D2206579-66DD-4E7D-9C13-87A8A7117D32@gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
 <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZN2Czf+z66sQj+8Sq9nw5MESEOQm1jBq_fG0VRL5ZGPw@mail.gmail.com>

Spike pointed out that it?s supply and demand.  dan

The problem here is that they, college football, are running a monopoly.
Presumably they are getting the same waiver on that that major league
baseball has been getting for many years.  I'll have to do some research.
I think the NBA had some rule that a person could not join it until his age
group finished college, and that rule went down to a lawsuit and now high
school grads can get in the NBA.  I think the NFL doesn't want you unless
you have been to their minor leagues - the colleges.

Don't any of you have a problem with men putting hundreds of millions of
dollars in some else's pocket and getting little in return? This is not an
economic situation to me - it's humanist - it's fair play.  Grossly unfair.

bill w

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 12:58 PM, Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Dec 15, 2017, at 10:00 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> spike wrote - Good athletic talent costs money.  The more talent, the more
> it costs, and the more tickets the college makes.  It really is first-tier
> professional sports.  The players are already paid what they cost.
>
> ---------
>
> But not what they are worth.  bill w
>
>
> Spike pointed out that it?s supply and demand. I think the same is
> generally true across the entertainment industry: lots of people _want_ to
> do it, so the supply is quite high (compared with other activities). (I
> stress ?want? because that?s unlike slavery. Slaves didn?t want to work on
> plantations in Jamaica and the South. In fact, they had to be guarded from
> running away.)
>
> A bigger problem might be that too many people believe that they can be
> part of that tiny percentage that are able to make a paying career out of
> this. (And I?m sure many do it for love of the activity. But I?ve seen so
> many who seem to really think they have a chance here.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":
> http://mybook.to/SandTrap
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From eh at edwardhaigh.com  Fri Dec 15 17:08:56 2017
From: eh at edwardhaigh.com (Edward Haigh)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 17:08:56 +0000
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABajUdotmV59jCnGYEDg_h=HHjjRnYCfsqJ3DTdAboYwhiCasg@mail.gmail.com>

Slavery is *not *comparable to college football. Sure, we could call it
exploitation - but certainly not slavery.

At the end of the day we are talking about a voluntary athletics club where
students are almost certainly taking part for the experience and enjoyment.

Is there any source where a student shares the same view that it's like
slavery?

I know this is anecdotal, but my partner rows 35 - 40 hours a week while
she trains for the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. This is voluntary and
doesn't even include the perks they receive like tuition - yet it raises a
considerably amount of money and media attention for the sponsors and
universities. If I suggested it was slavery she would laugh.

I feel like using this as a comparison belittles actual modern day slavery.

- Ed

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 4:55 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying athletes but I hardly
> think it's comparable to slavery.
>
> -Dave
>
> Yes, they are volunteers, but the real slaves made big money for the
> plantation owners and received very little in return.  ESPN paid NCAA $470
> millions of dollars and the players get a scholarship?  That IS comparable
> to actual slaves.
>
> bill w
>
> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 9:40 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 10:22 AM, William Flynn Wallace <
>> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> 1.6% of college football players make it to the pros.  So what?  So
>>> after perhaps making tens of millions of dollars for their schools winning
>>> conference titles, bowl games, the vast majority of the players graduate
>>> having gotten mostly nothing in return.
>>>
>>> It is time to pay the players.  Where else do we see employees
>>> contribute a great deal to the organization's bottom line and get a
>>> pittance in return?
>>>
>>> The idea that they are amateurs is ludicrous.  Even the Olympic
>>> organization got the right idea on that awhile back.  How much has Michael
>>> Phelps put in the bank?
>>>
>>> It is not a question of having the money. It's a question of sharing
>>> it.  The players and coaches earned it.  The coaches certainly get their
>>> share and their schools too.  The real money makers get next to nothing -
>>> tuition, books, a very few spending dollars.
>>>
>>> This blatant hypocrisy needs to stop.  This is slave labor, isn't it?
>>> Where else can they market their skills?  Nowhere.
>>>
>>> Outside of actual slavery, I can't think of another situation that is
>>> this unfair.  Absolutely unAmerican.
>>>
>>
>> The better players get athletic scholarships. That's substantial.
>> Athletics are voluntary: nobody is making anyone play football. Ask players
>> why they play. I think most just enjoy playing the game and the experience
>> of being a varsity athlete. I'd be in favor of removing obstacles to paying
>> athletes but I hardly think it's comparable to slavery.
>>
>> -Dave
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 19:57:09 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 14:57:09 -0500
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZN2Czf+z66sQj+8Sq9nw5MESEOQm1jBq_fG0VRL5ZGPw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
 <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb7uzyygNY9kZ73s8uJjcnzP-rDrUvHmXcHa7vz6Sq13Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <D2206579-66DD-4E7D-9C13-87A8A7117D32@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZN2Czf+z66sQj+8Sq9nw5MESEOQm1jBq_fG0VRL5ZGPw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2fB+buomMW-KbcdCA1+D-3HRJxpkfcGiT+UMg_QaPPV1Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 2:42 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Don't any of you have a problem with men putting hundreds of millions of
> dollars in some else's pocket and getting little in return? This is not an
> economic situation to me - it's humanist - it's fair play.  Grossly unfair.
>

I don't. It's voluntary. They don't need me to step in and fight against
the unfairness because they can quit any time they want.

-Dave
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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 20:00:50 2017
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 15:00:50 -0500
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CABajUdotmV59jCnGYEDg_h=HHjjRnYCfsqJ3DTdAboYwhiCasg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABajUdotmV59jCnGYEDg_h=HHjjRnYCfsqJ3DTdAboYwhiCasg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2ctrjaeYWUt5K_w-2w-Yotokj9nFM_30tsmoFGHiMQLmw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 12:08 PM, Edward Haigh <eh at edwardhaigh.com> wrote:

>  know this is anecdotal, but my partner rows 35 - 40 hours a week while
> she trains for the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. This is voluntary and
> doesn't even include the perks they receive like tuition - yet it raises a
> considerably amount of money and media attention for the sponsors and
> universities. If I suggested it was slavery she would laugh.
>

Cool! I row competitively, but nowhere near that level. I do it for fun and
pay for the privilege, but I'm not making anyone rich.

-Dave
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec 15 19:53:23 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 11:53:23 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01e601d375de$5e2e2bb0$1a8a8310$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] 

On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan



>?(Frankly, I?ve never understood why education and sports are so tightly linked together.)  Dan

 

They?re not, Dan!  Have you heard the post-game interviews from some of the top college players?  Sheesh!  Many of them demonstrate a mastery of vocabulary completely contained in Dr. Seuss? Green Eggs and Ham.  Are they really going to give this guy a degree?  In what?  Political Science?  Sure hope it isn?t English.

 

I propose an experiment no one will do, even when in the midst of hot debate over the effect of mild concussion in the sport: make the team retake the SAT or ACT on their way out the door, then compare it to their score from four years previous.

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 20:08:50 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 14:08:50 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2fB+buomMW-KbcdCA1+D-3HRJxpkfcGiT+UMg_QaPPV1Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
 <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
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 <D2206579-66DD-4E7D-9C13-87A8A7117D32@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZN2Czf+z66sQj+8Sq9nw5MESEOQm1jBq_fG0VRL5ZGPw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fB+buomMW-KbcdCA1+D-3HRJxpkfcGiT+UMg_QaPPV1Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbcSyspwZZtZWnOb+C-1Kdn7E4pDOfxcQSnD6tM9JKMkQ@mail.gmail.com>

I certainly did not mean to disrespect actual slavery.

I think this will all come out in the wash.  The college players now have a
union, and eventually they will win some pay.

It's voluntary because there are no other places to play college
football!!

I guess my feelings for the players is unique among this group.

bill w

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 1:57 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 2:42 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Don't any of you have a problem with men putting hundreds of millions of
>> dollars in some else's pocket and getting little in return? This is not an
>> economic situation to me - it's humanist - it's fair play.  Grossly unfair.
>>
>
> I don't. It's voluntary. They don't need me to step in and fight against
> the unfairness because they can quit any time they want.
>
> -Dave
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Fri Dec 15 20:10:10 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 14:10:10 -0600
Subject: [ExI] bitcoin
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaefNmyD1Y2NFmpTYd9yx0P7WHTRK8GYnDRqcrEW0R_KA@mail.gmail.com>

Some of you may be interested in this - bill w

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Moon Capital Management <marsha at mooncap.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 1:59 PM
Subject: David Moon MarketView 12.17.17
To: foozler83 at gmail.com


Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
<http://mailchi.mp/c5754d4c7301/david-moon-marketview-3235045?e=5de89497cb>
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<https://mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=25586377e4&e=5de89497cb>

*Bitcoin: reasonably risk or gamble?*

*December 17, 2017*

The mounting interest in digital currency such as Bitcoin has
understandable impulses in an era of prolific money printing by central
banks. How strong is the public interest? For the first week of December,
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Because virtual currencies are tracked and maintained by vast networks of
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currency?, a beneficiary of the well-deserved diminished confidence in
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While the U.S. dollar is no longer backed by gold, it is backed by the
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To be a currency, an asset must be both a medium of exchange and a safe
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Few retailers accept bitcoin; if you can?t use it at Walmart or a gas
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When a person receives a paycheck, he is storing the value of his work into
currency for later use. When you convert the value of your work into
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While bitcoin doesn?t meet either test of a currency, it is the definition
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making fortunes from their trading. For similar characteristics, look no
further than residential real estate in 2007, dot-come stocks in 1999,
tulip bulbs in the 1600s and beanie babies in 1997.

Bitcoin is by definition speculative. Most people are buying them for no
reason other than that they expect the price will go up. When the clerk at
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The fear of missing out is a powerful emotional motivator, but like dot-com
stocks and Beanie Babies, it?s usually advisable to completely avoid
frenzies. As Warren Buffett notes, "What the wise man does in the
beginning, the fool does in the end."


     *If you would like to learn about David's award winning collection of
daily devotionals, Thoughts Are Things, visit davidmoon.com
<https://mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=4754ce5c18&e=5de89497cb>.*

*Did you miss a previous week's column?  Click here
<https://mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=a69942779f&e=5de89497cb>*

*David Moon is president of Moon Capital Management. This article
originally appeared in the USA TODAY NETWORK.*



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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec 15 20:22:21 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:22:21 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <8B718247-35CB-440B-9019-B76ECA84083B@gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ2AQqTc8ipwTmRhcEzV4RaQpJRE6u9GyEw+sBV9aaYnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <8B718247-35CB-440B-9019-B76ECA84083B@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <024501d375e2$6a3cbb20$3eb63160$@att.net>

 

 

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

Subject: Re: [ExI] letter

 

On Dec 15, 2017, at 10:02 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com> > wrote:

 

>>>?dan - (Frankly, I?ve never understood why education and sports are so tightly linked together.)





>>?It's a guy thing - macho.  

 

>?Why isn?t hunting part of higher education then? That?s usually considered macho? Dan

 

 

 

It is, depending on how one defines the term ?higher.?  When I went to high school in the deep south tragically many years ago, some of the students drove jacked-up pickup trucks, gun rack in the back window with a coupla shootin arns.  If one did that today, it would cause an immediate lockdown or panicked evacuation.  There was a good duck-hunting lake near that school where guys would sometimes go out and pop a few tasty foul before school.

 

One can also play a bit with the definition of the term hunting.  I spent much of my time in my third year of college hunting for a bride.  Found her, married her, still married to her a third of a century later.  She was far more valuable than the education I took out of there.

 

spike

 





 

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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec 15 20:45:03 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:45:03 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbcSyspwZZtZWnOb+C-1Kdn7E4pDOfxcQSnD6tM9JKMkQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
 <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb7uzyygNY9kZ73s8uJjcnzP-rDrUvHmXcHa7vz6Sq13Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <D2206579-66DD-4E7D-9C13-87A8A7117D32@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZN2Czf+z66sQj+8Sq9nw5MESEOQm1jBq_fG0VRL5ZGPw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fB+buomMW-KbcdCA1+D-3HRJxpkfcGiT+UMg_QaPPV1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbcSyspwZZtZWnOb+C-1Kdn7E4pDOfxcQSnD6tM9JKMkQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <026e01d375e5$959c85e0$c0d591a0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] 

On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace

Subject: Re: [ExI] letter

 

 

>?  The college players now have a union, and eventually they will win some pay.

 

>?It's voluntary because there are no other places to play college football!!  

 

>?bill w

 

 

Sure but why does it need to be *college* football?  Why don?t we have minor league football?  What about the guys who are good players but they really are just too dumb to be college material?  What about those good college players who are not good enough to play pro but who graduate?  Shouldn?t they have a league of their own?  Colleges are running a monopoly on college football, but I bet we could create minor league football teams which would stomp those college teams flat.

 

This is good thing.  It hasn?t been done yet, but I can see it coming as easily as if it has already happened: some yahoo med student is going to follow through with my suggestion: have the football players take the SAT right after their senior year last football game.  When they do, I suspect plenty of the players will score lower, particularly those fellers whose job it is to line up every play slam into the other fellers.  That just can?t be good for brains.  

 

When that data comes out, there will be massive lawsuits against the colleges, which might end up with the taxpayers picking up the tab rather than those who are consumers of that particular form of entertainment, as indicated by those who actually know the technical name for the fellers who line up every play and slam into the other fellers.  If a football minor league existed, they would be holding the bag for that instead of you and me.

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Dec 15 21:19:25 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 13:19:25 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbcSyspwZZtZWnOb+C-1Kdn7E4pDOfxcQSnD6tM9JKMkQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
 <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb7uzyygNY9kZ73s8uJjcnzP-rDrUvHmXcHa7vz6Sq13Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <D2206579-66DD-4E7D-9C13-87A8A7117D32@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZN2Czf+z66sQj+8Sq9nw5MESEOQm1jBq_fG0VRL5ZGPw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fB+buomMW-KbcdCA1+D-3HRJxpkfcGiT+UMg_QaPPV1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbcSyspwZZtZWnOb+C-1Kdn7E4pDOfxcQSnD6tM9JKMkQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <02ca01d375ea$63111fa0$29335ee0$@att.net>

 

 

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



 

>? The college players now have a union, and eventually they will win some pay?

 

bill w

 

 

 

Oh my, BillW gave me a terrific idea.  When college football players form a union, we can imagine some colleges will just say no, they won?t deal with any union representative, these Right-To-Play colleges.  So now we can set up something like the annual American ritual where we have the best teams from the two major professional football leagues play each other, only this time it would be even more interesting: we could have the union teams vs the non-union teams.  We could call it the Stupor Bowl.  You know the yahoos would want to watch it.  I am a yahoo who would watch it.

 

OK that?s a bit of a stretch.  I have never watched a college or pro football game, it?s unlikely I will take it up now.  I would do it if it is humans vs robots.  Union vs non-union, probably not interesting enough to watch.  I would look up the score afterwards however.  I would place PredictIt bets on the Stupor Bowl.  

 

Evolution have mercy, the money to be made here, oh it makes my butt hurt.  But it?s a good hurt.

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 22:15:16 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 16:15:16 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter ii
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEY_qwLR5JBYVUiJ2EATp2M+eS_C9+O9wAjB3OfFjd_0XA@mail.gmail.com>

spike - Are they really going to give this guy a degree?  In what?
Political Science?  Sure hope it isn?t English.

 Usually for the dummies it's sports management.  I don't have to go to a
college catalog to find out who teaches those courses.  Maybe we can guess
at how hard they are.

Illiterates do 'graduate' from college.

bill w
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 22:21:46 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 16:21:46 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <026e01d375e5$959c85e0$c0d591a0$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbMY1G2sRXJ6jMmjgW2vQ6oeEB4+0DNbnrSN-AME6k6bA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fv8t24VraTaYP0eQr8_OwhmzphLzztHUU-A1XcoyU84A@mail.gmail.com>
 <006001d375ca$47fddf20$d7f99d60$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb7uzyygNY9kZ73s8uJjcnzP-rDrUvHmXcHa7vz6Sq13Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <D2206579-66DD-4E7D-9C13-87A8A7117D32@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZN2Czf+z66sQj+8Sq9nw5MESEOQm1jBq_fG0VRL5ZGPw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2fB+buomMW-KbcdCA1+D-3HRJxpkfcGiT+UMg_QaPPV1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbcSyspwZZtZWnOb+C-1Kdn7E4pDOfxcQSnD6tM9JKMkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <026e01d375e5$959c85e0$c0d591a0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYJ7Qsy+_RtbxX37iLVB=GCKkQxfJJ3GoihwLWtyZeOpg@mail.gmail.com>

Sure but why does it need to be **college** football?  Why don?t we have
minor league football? - spike

For that I think you would have to find a history of the AFL, which was a
minor league league.  I don't know the answers here, or what pushed them
into a merger-  probably $$$.  -  I also don't know how the Canadian
Football league works and what players they take.  But if a player is
outstanding, like that guy who plays basketball for Cleveland (??), they
will find a way for him to play.  I think Moses Malone was the first high
school player to go straight to the NBA.  bill w

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 2:45 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]
>
> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] letter
>
>
>
>
>
> >?  The college players now have a union, and eventually they will win
> some pay.
>
>
>
> >?It's voluntary because there are no other places to play college
> football!!
>
>
>
> >?bill w
>
>
>
>
>
> Sure but why does it need to be **college** football?  Why don?t we have
> minor league football?  What about the guys who are good players but they
> really are just too dumb to be college material?  What about those good
> college players who are not good enough to play pro but who graduate?
> Shouldn?t they have a league of their own?  Colleges are running a monopoly
> on college football, but I bet we could create minor league football teams
> which would stomp those college teams flat.
>
>
>
> This is good thing.  It hasn?t been done yet, but I can see it coming as
> easily as if it has already happened: some yahoo med student is going to
> follow through with my suggestion: have the football players take the SAT
> right after their senior year last football game.  When they do, I suspect
> plenty of the players will score lower, particularly those fellers whose
> job it is to line up every play slam into the other fellers.  That just
> can?t be good for brains.
>
>
>
> When that data comes out, there will be massive lawsuits against the
> colleges, which might end up with the taxpayers picking up the tab rather
> than those who are consumers of that particular form of entertainment, as
> indicated by those who actually know the technical name for the fellers who
> line up every play and slam into the other fellers.  If a football minor
> league existed, they would be holding the bag for that instead of you and
> me.
>
>
>
> 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 foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Dec 15 22:24:19 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 16:24:19 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <024501d375e2$6a3cbb20$3eb63160$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ2AQqTc8ipwTmRhcEzV4RaQpJRE6u9GyEw+sBV9aaYnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <8B718247-35CB-440B-9019-B76ECA84083B@gmail.com>
 <024501d375e2$6a3cbb20$3eb63160$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZf=eQuVV_gz5vRtNWUJPov-BPv14HpYc5hOLdHMAYV6Q@mail.gmail.com>

dan wrote - Why isn?t hunting part of higher education then? That?s usually
considered macho? Dan


?You have read Spike's answer, I suppose.  Imagine those guys - do you
think that they would enroll in a high school course in how to use
weapons?  ROTF    bill w?


On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 2:22 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Dan TheBookMan
>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] letter
>
>
>
> On Dec 15, 2017, at 10:02 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> >>>?dan - (Frankly, I?ve never understood why education and sports are so
> tightly linked together.)
>
>
>
> >>?It's a guy thing - macho.
>
>
>
> >?Why isn?t hunting part of higher education then? That?s usually
> considered macho? Dan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> It is, depending on how one defines the term ?higher.?  When I went to
> high school in the deep south tragically many years ago, some of the
> students drove jacked-up pickup trucks, gun rack in the back window with a
> coupla shootin arns.  If one did that today, it would cause an immediate
> lockdown or panicked evacuation.  There was a good duck-hunting lake near
> that school where guys would sometimes go out and pop a few tasty foul
> before school.
>
>
>
> One can also play a bit with the definition of the term hunting.  I spent
> much of my time in my third year of college hunting for a bride.  Found
> her, married her, still married to her a third of a century later.  She was
> far more valuable than the education I took out of there.
>
>
>
> 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 spike66 at att.net  Sat Dec 16 00:33:02 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 16:33:02 -0800
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZf=eQuVV_gz5vRtNWUJPov-BPv14HpYc5hOLdHMAYV6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ2AQqTc8ipwTmRhcEzV4RaQpJRE6u9GyEw+sBV9aaYnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <8B718247-35CB-440B-9019-B76ECA84083B@gmail.com>
 <024501d375e2$6a3cbb20$3eb63160$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZf=eQuVV_gz5vRtNWUJPov-BPv14HpYc5hOLdHMAYV6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00e701d37605$6f7a81d0$4e6f8570$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2017 2:24 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] letter

 

>>?dan wrote - Why isn?t hunting part of higher education then? That?s usually considered macho? Dan

 

?>?You have read Spike's answer, I suppose.  Imagine those guys - do you think that they would enroll in a high school course in how to use weapons?  ROTF    bill w?

 

 

 

Hunters don?t use weapons.  Soldiers and constables use weapons.  Hunters use sporting goods.

 

spike

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Dec 16 00:57:04 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 18:57:04 -0600
Subject: [ExI] letter
In-Reply-To: <00e701d37605$6f7a81d0$4e6f8570$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEYfSeka3wO2pfZkHW-kOOSJV2pFoDds91R1Y4UJV3Gtsg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dad-TyANCenZs14OX0pO_N1yXtg6Ym_VMtt0Si_FJB7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <B9F584F6-F85B-46EF-9AB5-23A7EF9FA142@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaybQ3mSoEeeeHjYjT9uxKBAjPbwh_yVDK2VPH-uTpzGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <633C5D72-F47F-4528-AAF6-040D630B528D@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ2AQqTc8ipwTmRhcEzV4RaQpJRE6u9GyEw+sBV9aaYnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <8B718247-35CB-440B-9019-B76ECA84083B@gmail.com>
 <024501d375e2$6a3cbb20$3eb63160$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZf=eQuVV_gz5vRtNWUJPov-BPv14HpYc5hOLdHMAYV6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <00e701d37605$6f7a81d0$4e6f8570$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYghq564ziHaOja4yg2ry6_Yozven7xN_4SV96qeC4fOQ@mail.gmail.com>

spike - Hunters don?t use weapons.  Soldiers and constables use weapons.
Hunters use sporting goods.

 According to whom?  For me, I see nothing sporting about it.  The victim
has little chance.   A .410 against a squirrel?  I did my share of shooting
and gave it up when Dad died.  Hunting is OK with me.  Deer especially -
most dangerous animal in the USA.  Nearly as dangerous as bath tubs.  And
more than bees.

bill w

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 6:33 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Sent:* Friday, December 15, 2017 2:24 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] letter
>
>
>
> >>?dan wrote - Why isn?t hunting part of higher education then? That?s
> usually considered macho? Dan
>
>
>
> ?>?You have read Spike's answer, I suppose.  Imagine those guys - do you
> think that they would enroll in a high school course in how to use
> weapons?  ROTF    bill w?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hunters don?t use weapons.  Soldiers and constables use weapons.  Hunters
> use sporting goods.
>
>
>
> 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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Dec 16 15:11:44 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 10:11:44 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>

Apparently
in honor of?
 George Carlin
?'s famous Seven Words You Can'r Say On Television ?the
 Trump administration has ordered The
? ?
Centers for Disease Control
?, an agency with a 7 billion dollar yearly budget,  ?
not
? ?
to use seven words in any official documents
? ?
issued
next year.
? Instead of saying ?
?science-based? or ??evidence-based?
? they  must now say ?
"?
CDC recommendations
?based ?
on science in consideration with community standards and wishes?
?. So if a community wishes that somethings do cause disease ?(birth
control and vaccines for example) then they do, and if a
community does
?not?
 wish
?other things to ?
cause disease
? (?smoking, junk food, coal,) then they don't. That is the very essence
of magical thinking.

?The other 5 words the CDC must never utter are ?"
fetus?
?,?
 ?transgender
?",?
?vulnerable,? ?entitlement,? and
?"?
diversity
?"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-gets-list-of-forbidden-words-fetus-transgender-diversity/2017/12/15/f503837a-e1cf-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html?utm_term=.d1997205e507
?

John K Clark?
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Dec 16 15:33:35 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 07:33:35 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>

 

 

On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words

 

 

>?Apparently in honor of? George Carlin's famous Seven Words You Can'r Say On Television ?the Trump administration has ordered The Centers for Disease Control, ?not to use seven words in any official documents? John K Clark?

 

The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly negligent.?

 

spike

 

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Dec 16 15:53:28 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 10:53:28 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv31Y64Jo=7=HiwX4cjC75mTdyS4h6UASZQ88wjZVF9Zqw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 10:33 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:



> ?> ?
> The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly negligent.?
>
>
?I don't follow.?

?

? John K Clark?




>
>
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Dec 16 15:58:06 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 09:58:06 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>

Apparently in honor of? George Carlin's famous Seven Words You Can'r Say On
Television ?the Trump administration has ordered The Centers for Disease
Control, ?not to use seven words in any official documents? John K Clark?



The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly neg*ligence".
spike\*



*Is it only me, or does our gov. more and more resemble a religion?  "We
are faultless and the other side is all wrong."  How is that different from
'Our God is the only true God?"  I'd say the Republicans since I don't hear
much of anything from the Democrats.  If community values clash with
science, then science is wrong.  And there is no one to tell them different
- they have the power. Scary  *


*bill w*




On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 9:33 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *On Behalf Of *John Clark
> *Subject:* [ExI] Forbidden Words
>
>
>
>
>
> >?Apparently in honor of? George Carlin's famous Seven Words You Can'r Say
> On Television ?the Trump administration has ordered The Centers for Disease
> Control, ?not to use seven words in any official documents? John K Clark?
>
>
>
> The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly negligent.?
>
>
>
> 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 spike66 at att.net  Sat Dec 16 16:01:02 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 08:01:02 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv31Y64Jo=7=HiwX4cjC75mTdyS4h6UASZQ88wjZVF9Zqw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv31Y64Jo=7=HiwX4cjC75mTdyS4h6UASZQ88wjZVF9Zqw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005601d37687$12d8d8a0$388a89e0$@att.net>

 

 

 

On Behalf Of John Clark

Subject: Re: [ExI] Forbidden Words

 

On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 10:33 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

 

?> ?>?The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly negligent.?

 

?>?I don't follow.?  John K Clark?

 

John do tell me your are kidding me please.

 

spike

 

 

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Dec 16 16:14:06 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 11:14:06 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <005601d37687$12d8d8a0$388a89e0$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv31Y64Jo=7=HiwX4cjC75mTdyS4h6UASZQ88wjZVF9Zqw@mail.gmail.com>
 <005601d37687$12d8d8a0$388a89e0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv018xb1=mKACN5EpRvct-aT2sdkSt-2Y9p5tFrSSoJEJQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 11:01 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
>
>
> *On Behalf Of *John Clark
>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Forbidden Words
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 10:33 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> ?> ?>?The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly
> negligent.?
>
>
>
> ?>?I don't follow.?  John K Clark?
>
>
>
> John do tell me your are kidding me please.
>

?No, I don't know what you're talking about.

  John K Clark?


>
>
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Dec 16 16:49:04 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 08:49:04 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>

 

 

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



>>The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly negligence".  spike\

The wording of the citation was modified.  I wrote:

?> ?The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly negligent.?

Under some circumstances, the similar-sounding terms ?grossly negligent? and ?extremely careless? take on not just different meanings, they take on functionally opposite meanings.  It is explained here:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-clinton-grassley/index.html

>? does our gov. more and more resemble a religion? 

It does and has for some time.

>? How is that different from 'Our God is the only true God?" 

It is a lot like that.  That?s why we have libertarians and atheists.  We know what religion is, and we know what government power is, we know what it does.

>?And there is no one to tell them different - they have the power. Scary 

This is the well-known danger of power.  It falls into the wrong hands.  We who live in a democratic republic are left to choose which wrong hands the power falls into.

BillW, if you don?t know the importance of ?grossly negligent? vs ?extremely careless? do get on Google and find out how those are opposites under some circumstances.

In the meantime, note that we are in an interesting time from an Orwellian perspective.  In Nineteen Eighty Four, Orwell described a dysfunctional government in which the officials were watched constantly, but the inner circle had the option of turning off their monitors.  Now we face the question: do we allow government officials to communicate with the option of turning off the monitoring process?  In this case, it means their workings are not archived.  Who gets that?  What if the party in power gets that privilege but the opposing party does not?  Is that not a chain reaction leading to a complete totalitarian grip on power?

spike

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Dec 16 17:58:43 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 11:58:43 -0600
Subject: [ExI] China's social credit system -scary
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZ=bpd4oObwfzaqVAR=QNVL7XhGjBonoTDDq1Xecu9aGA@mail.gmail.com>

https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

bill w
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Dec 16 20:21:44 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 14:21:44 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEb1byy-soTCexk7Dx_nURE4qnJpniPhy_8sEEsx5rPuYw@mail.gmail.com>

Now we face the question: do we allow government officials to communicate
with the option of turning off the monitoring process?  In this case, it
means their workings are not archived.  Who gets that?  What if the party
in power gets that privilege but the opposing party does not?  Is that not
a chain reaction leading to a complete totalitarian grip on power?

spike

*In a democracy/republic, the monitors of gov. are the people.  So, yes
they have shut the people out by going against their wishes.  Poll after
poll shows that the gov. keeps doing things the polls show people are
against - even in their own party.  As a result they get very low ratings,
about which they seem to care not at all.  They are looking up to their
money bags and not down to the common people.  Poll after poll shows that
the majority think like the Demos, but they don't seem to be getting
elected.  As long as we have elections we have a chance of avoiding getting
much worse.  What does it take to get the people out to vote?  I wish I
knew that one.*

bill w

On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 10:49 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
>
> >>The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly neg*ligence".
> spike\*
>
> The wording of the citation was modified.  I wrote:
>
> ?> ?The FBI has a list too.  They are not allowed to use ?grossly
> negligent.?
>
> Under some circumstances, the similar-sounding terms ?grossly negligent?
> and ?extremely careless? take on not just different meanings, they take on
> functionally opposite meanings.  It is explained here:
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/james-comey-hillary-
> clinton-grassley/index.html
>
> >?* does our gov. more and more resemble a religion? *
>
> It does and has for some time.
>
> >?* How is that different from 'Our God is the only true God?" *
>
> It is a lot like that.  That?s why we have libertarians and atheists.  We
> know what religion is, and we know what government power is, we know what
> it does.
>
> *>?And there is no one to tell them different - they have the power.
> Scary *
>
> This is the well-known danger of power.  It falls into the wrong hands.
> We who live in a democratic republic are left to choose which wrong hands
> the power falls into.
>
> BillW, if you don?t know the importance of ?grossly negligent? vs
> ?extremely careless? do get on Google and find out how those are opposites
> under some circumstances.
>
> In the meantime, note that we are in an interesting time from an Orwellian
> perspective.  In Nineteen Eighty Four, Orwell described a dysfunctional
> government in which the officials were watched constantly, but the inner
> circle had the option of turning off their monitors.  Now we face the
> question: do we allow government officials to communicate with the option
> of turning off the monitoring process?  In this case, it means their
> workings are not archived.  Who gets that?  What if the party in power gets
> that privilege but the opposing party does not?  Is that not a chain
> reaction leading to a complete totalitarian grip on power?
>
> 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 csaucier at sovacs.com  Sat Dec 16 20:07:50 2017
From: csaucier at sovacs.com (Christian Saucier)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 12:07:50 -0800
Subject: [ExI] bitcoin
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaefNmyD1Y2NFmpTYd9yx0P7WHTRK8GYnDRqcrEW0R_KA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEaefNmyD1Y2NFmpTYd9yx0P7WHTRK8GYnDRqcrEW0R_KA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <128FC4A1-41B6-4838-AE9C-141C7AE8D3A1@sovacs.com>

I would not recommend doing business with Moon Capital Management.  

This analyst demonstrates his lack of understanding in both 1) the subjective nature of value, and 2) the nature of bitcoin's value. 

It's ok to think that bitcoin is overvalued at US$17K (I disagree, of course). It is not serious to say that bitcoin provides no value and that therefore its current market value is purely speculative.  

C. 




On December 15, 2017 12:10:10 PM PST, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>Some of you may be interested in this - bill w
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: Moon Capital Management <marsha at mooncap.com>
>Date: Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 1:59 PM
>Subject: David Moon MarketView 12.17.17
>To: foozler83 at gmail.com
>
>
>Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
><http://mailchi.mp/c5754d4c7301/david-moon-marketview-3235045?e=5de89497cb>
>[image: Moon Capital Management, LLC]
><https://mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=25586377e4&e=5de89497cb>
>
>*Bitcoin: reasonably risk or gamble?*
>
>*December 17, 2017*
>
>The mounting interest in digital currency such as Bitcoin has
>understandable impulses in an era of prolific money printing by central
>banks. How strong is the public interest? For the first week of
>December,
>Google searches related to the digital currency outpaced searches on
>Donald
>Trump.
>
>Because virtual currencies are tracked and maintained by vast networks
>of
>computers, no government or bank is in control. Call it the ?idealist?s
>currency?, a beneficiary of the well-deserved diminished confidence in
>paper money.
>
>While the U.S. dollar is no longer backed by gold, it is backed by the
>largest single financial asset in the history of the world: the taxing
>authority of the U.S. federal government. By contrast, bitcoins are
>lines
>of code generated by algorithms, accounted for as entries in a ledger
>(called a blockchain) and backed by nothing other than the price at
>which
>the next speculator is willing to pay for them.
>
>To be a currency, an asset must be both a medium of exchange and a safe
>store of value. Bitcoin fails both tests.
>
>Few retailers accept bitcoin; if you can?t use it at Walmart or a gas
>station, it isn?t a medium of exchange. Despite a 2,900 percent
>increase in
>price over the past two years, the only increase in bitcoin
>transactions is
>among computer hackers and online drug dealers.
>
>When a person receives a paycheck, he is storing the value of his work
>into
>currency for later use. When you convert the value of your work into
>something that fluctuates 30% on a daily basis, you are betting the
>value
>of your work on the changing demand for a computer algorithm you don?t
>understand and can?t explain. That?s a massive failure of the store of
>value test.
>
>While bitcoin doesn?t meet either test of a currency, it is the
>definition
>of a speculative bubble: sharp price increases, public excitement, both
>a
>business and general media frenzy, and envy-inspiring stories of others
>making fortunes from their trading. For similar characteristics, look
>no
>further than residential real estate in 2007, dot-come stocks in 1999,
>tulip bulbs in the 1600s and beanie babies in 1997.
>
>Bitcoin is by definition speculative. Most people are buying them for
>no
>reason other than that they expect the price will go up. When the clerk
>at
>my favorite Pilot station and my brother-in-law ask me about a new hot
>investment concept, it is almost certainly a speculative bubble.
>
>The fear of missing out is a powerful emotional motivator, but like
>dot-com
>stocks and Beanie Babies, it?s usually advisable to completely avoid
>frenzies. As Warren Buffett notes, "What the wise man does in the
>beginning, the fool does in the end."
>
>
>  *If you would like to learn about David's award winning collection of
>daily devotionals, Thoughts Are Things, visit davidmoon.com
><https://mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=4754ce5c18&e=5de89497cb>.*
>
>*Did you miss a previous week's column?  Click here
><https://mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=a69942779f&e=5de89497cb>*
>
>*David Moon is president of Moon Capital Management. This article
>originally appeared in the USA TODAY NETWORK.*
>
>
>
>You are receiving this email because you have a relationship with MCM
>or
>have previously requested to receive MCM commentary.
>
>Unsubscribe
><https://mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=55054da1ae&e=5de89497cb&c=a0c3603e72>
>foozler83 at gmail.com from this list | Forward to a friend
><http://us1.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=a0c3603e72&e=5de89497cb>
>| Update your profile
><https://mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/profile?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=55054da1ae&e=5de89497cb>
>*Our mailing address is:*
>Moon Capital Management, LLC
>900 South Gay St
><https://maps.google.com/?q=900+South+Gay+St&entry=gmail&source=g>
>2103 Riverview Tower
>Knoxville, TN 37902
>
>Add us to your address book
><//mooncap.us1.list-manage.com/vcard?u=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&id=55054da1ae>
>
>*Copyright (C) 2017 Moon Capital Management, LLC All rights reserved.*
>[image: Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp]
><http://www.mailchimp.com/monkey-rewards/?utm_source=freemium_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=monkey_rewards&aid=98a3b51043802cfedc170dc6a&afl=1>
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Sat Dec 16 21:09:38 2017
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 16:09:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEb1byy-soTCexk7Dx_nURE4qnJpniPhy_8sEEsx5rPuYw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb1byy-soTCexk7Dx_nURE4qnJpniPhy_8sEEsx5rPuYw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyH-XXBaZpJY+m+Q1mFXWABJLCqWSR=Yu+9VC7Gyf=T_rg@mail.gmail.com>

Spike,

Regardless of any value judgment on Hillary Clinton's scruples or
corruption (for what it's worth, I think she is indeed corrupt and did
indeed do much of the bad stuff she has been accused of,) could I kindly
ask:

What the fuck does Hillary Clinton's treatment of classified files have to
do with the topic of this email?

You're a proponent of logic, I assume?

Try to use it...not to be critical but, can we keep away from the
non-sequiturs?  Isn't that the kind of thing JKC bugged us all with during
the election?  Unless you're making some kind of oblique joke at John.  Not
sure.
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From avant at sollegro.com  Sun Dec 17 04:09:40 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 20:09:40 -0800
Subject: [ExI] USS Princeton Airmens' Account of UFO Intercept
Message-ID: <995d6aeca1e2096c38d3772ccd04eeea.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

This NYT article has the detailed account of the day the USS Princeton
sent an F/A-18 Super Hornet to intercept a UFO it had been tracking on
radar for *two weeks*.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html?_r=0

Excerpt:

?Well, we?ve got a real-world vector for you,? the radio operator said,
according to Commander Fravor. For two weeks, the operator said, the
Princeton had been tracking mysterious aircraft. The objects appeared
suddenly at 80,000 feet, and then hurtled toward the sea, eventually
stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering. Then they either dropped out of
radar range or shot straight back up.


The radio operator instructed Commander Fravor and Commander Slaight, who
has given a similar account, to investigate.

The two fighter planes headed toward the objects. The Princeton alerted
them as they closed in, but when they arrived at ?merge plot? with the
object ? naval aviation parlance for being so close that the Princeton
could not tell which were the objects and which were the fighter jets ?
neither Commander Fravor nor Commander Slaight could see anything at
first. There was nothing on their radars, either.

Then, Commander Fravor looked down to the sea. It was calm that day, but
the waves were breaking over something that was just below the surface.
Whatever it was, it was big enough to cause the sea to churn.

Hovering 50 feet above the churn was an aircraft of some kind ? whitish ?
that was around 40 feet long and oval in shape. The craft was jumping
around erratically, staying over the wave disturbance but not moving in
any specific direction, Commander Fravor said. The disturbance looked like
frothy waves and foam, as if the water were boiling.

Stuart LaForge




From avant at sollegro.com  Sun Dec 17 03:44:35 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2017 19:44:35 -0800
Subject: [ExI] UFOs again or AAVs for the first time
Message-ID: <3aa9ee105fc6849cb1f0f002877e5a32.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Wow. It's getting kind of hard to remain skeptical here. This is either a
completely baffling new natural phenomenon, some country/org has drones
that make F/A-18 super-hornets, one of the U.S.'s most advanced fighter
jets, look primitive, or it's ET.

Opinions?


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/head-of-pentagons-secret-ufo-office-sought-to-make-evidence-public/2017/12/16/90bcb7cc-e2b2-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html?utm_term=.51047c4bdcf8

Declassified videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1uLwUTDA0

Wash. Post Article:
Just before leaving his Defense Department job two months ago,
intelligence officer Luis Elizondo quietly arranged to secure the release
of three of the most unusual videos in the Pentagon?s secret vaults: raw
footage from encounters between fighter jets and ?anomalous aerial
vehicles? ? military jargon for UFOs.

The videos, all taken from cockpit cameras, show pilots struggling to lock
their radars on oval-shaped vessels that, on screen, look vaguely like
giant flying Tic Tacs. The strange aircraft ? no claims are made about
their possible origins or makeup ? appear to hover briefly before
sprinting away at speeds that elicit gasps and shouts from the pilots.

Elizondo, in an internal Pentagon memo requesting that the videos be
cleared for public viewing, argued that the images could help educate
pilots and improve aviation safety. But in interviews, he said his
ultimate intention was to shed light on a little-known program Elizondo
himself ran for seven years: a low-key Defense Department operation to
collect and analyze reported UFO sightings.


The existence of the program, known as the Advanced Aviation Threat
Identification Program, was confirmed officially for the first time
Saturday by a Pentagon spokesman. The acknowledgment came in response to
media inquiries, which were generated in part by a start-up company
Elizondo has joined since retirement. The private company specializes in
promoting UFO research for scientific and entertainment purposes.


Current and former Pentagon officials confirm that the Pentagon program
has been in existence since 2007 and was formed for the purpose of
collecting and analyzing a wide range of ?anomalous aerospace threats?
ranging from advanced aircraft fielded by traditional U.S. adversaries to
commercial drones to possible alien encounters. It is a rare instance of
ongoing government investigations into a UFO phenomenon that was the
subject of multiple official inquiries in the 1950s and 1960s.

Spending for the program totaled at least $22?million, according to former
Pentagon officials and documents seen by The Washington Post, but the
funding officially ended in 2012. ?It was determined that there were
other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best
interest of the DOD to make a change,? Pentagon spokesman Tom Crosson
explained in a statement.

But officials familiar with the initiative say the collection effort
continued as recently as last month. The program operated jointly out of
the Pentagon and, at least for a time, an underground complex in Las Vegas
managed by Bigelow Aerospace, a defense contractor that builds modules for
space stations. It generated at least one report, a 490-page volume that
describes alleged UFO sightings in the United States and numerous foreign
countries over multiple decades.


Neither the Pentagon nor any of the program?s managers have claimed
conclusive proof of extraterrestrial visitors, but Elizondo, citing
accounts and data collected by his office over a decade, argues that the
videos and other evidence failed to generate the kind of high-level
attention he believes is warranted. As part of his decision to leave the
Pentagon, he not only sought the release of videos but also penned a
letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis complaining that a potential
security threat was being ignored.

?Despite overwhelming evidence at both the classified and unclassified
levels, certain individuals in the [Defense] Department remain staunchly
opposed to further research on what could be a tactical threat to our
pilots, sailors and soldiers, and perhaps even an existential threat to
our national security,? Elizondo said in the letter, a copy of which was
provided to The Post.

The first public revelations of the program came in a video conference
aired in October by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, the firm
Elizondo joined as a consultant after retiring from his Pentagon job. The
New York Times and Politico reported the existence of the program on their
websites Saturday. The Washington Post conducted several confidential
interviews over two months with Elizondo and Christopher Mellon, a former
deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence who also is an
officer of the private firm.


Documents provided by the former officials included letters of support by
former Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), a key backer of the
initiative who helped secure funding for the program and sought to ensure
a high degree of secrecy. Elizondo said knowledge of the program was
limited, even within the Pentagon itself. He said the program had multiple
enemies at senior levels of the department, from officials who were either
skeptical or ideologically opposed to AATIP?s mission.

?I was honored to serve at the DOD and took my mission of exploring
unexplained aerial phenomena quite seriously,? Elizondo said. ?In the end,
however, I couldn?t carry out that mission, because the department ? which
was understandably overstretched ? couldn?t give it the resources that the
mounting evidence deserved.?

It is difficult to draw conclusions about the nature of the unidentified
vessels from the videos alone. Experts generally urged caution, explaining
that reported UFO sightings often turn out of have innocuous explanations.

A retired Navy pilot contacted by The Post who was involved in a 2004
encounter depicted in one of the videos confirmed that the images
accurately reflected his recollection of the events. The pilot would only
speak on the condition of anonymity.

Elizondo, a 22-year veteran of the department who has held top security
clearance and worked on secret counterintelligence missions, said he chose
to join the private venture because he believed it was the best way to
continue the work he was unable to complete as a government employee.

?I left to find an environment where investigating these phenomena is
priority number one,? he said.

Stuart LaForge




From spike66 at att.net  Sun Dec 17 14:48:08 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 06:48:08 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyH-XXBaZpJY+m+Q1mFXWABJLCqWSR=Yu+9VC7Gyf=T_rg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Will Steinberg
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2017 1:10 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Forbidden Words

 

Spike,

 

>?Regardless of any value judgment on Hillary Clinton's scruples or corruption (for what it's worth, I think she is indeed corrupt and did indeed do much of the bad stuff she has been accused of,) could I kindly ask:

 

>?What the fuck does Hillary Clinton's treatment of classified files have to do with the topic of this email?

 

>?You're a proponent of logic, I assume?  

 

>?Try to use it...not to be critical but, can we keep away from the non-sequiturs?  Isn't that the kind of thing JKC bugged us all with during the election?  Unless you're making some kind of oblique joke at John.  Not sure.

 

 

 

Hi Will,

 

Criticism noted and deserved, my apologies.

 

But not for non-sequiturs.  

 

A marvelous feature of Exi-Chat is the chaotic formation of ideas that occurs here, often based on misunderstandings of the original intent of the author.  Recently Jeff Davis and I coinvented a concept for an aerospace system based on my misunderstanding of an idea he posted. A misunderstanding of an idea about prime numbers, posted to this forum in 1998 led to a non-sequitur and a second misunderstanding by Hal Finney, which may have led to? BitCoin.  BitCoin resulted in Jeff Davis? recent good fortune, which empowered him to propose to me a crazy notion, which led to our co-invention of this system.

 

The whole thing reminds me of that excellent James Burke TV series Connections.

 

I see the freeform unrestrained and mostly unmoderated nature of ExI-chat as the source of its rich weirdness and enduring strength.

 

Regarding posts with political content: whether we like it or not, Americans must face the persistent consequences of what happened in 2015 and 2016.  I agree this is not a proper forum for that.  But that discussion is likely to continue for a generation and beyond.

 

spike

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Dec 17 15:22:31 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 09:22:31 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb1byy-soTCexk7Dx_nURE4qnJpniPhy_8sEEsx5rPuYw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyH-XXBaZpJY+m+Q1mFXWABJLCqWSR=Yu+9VC7Gyf=T_rg@mail.gmail.com>
 <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaBQUZg=TD6hoXh+mM0VXAX3SPQbt+1ESE4Wj2U1qaczw@mail.gmail.com>

spike -  Regarding posts with political content: whether we like it or not,
Americans must face the persistent consequences of what happened in 2015
and 2016.  I agree this is not a proper forum for that.  But that
discussion is likely to continue for a generation and beyond.

?-----?

?This chat group appears almost dead sometimes and even at its busiest is
not overflowing my in box.  I think that anything ought to be allowed here
- jokes, family news, anything.  If people get tired of it, then let the
writer know in certain terms - don't put it all on Spike.  So I say we all
moderate this.  Nobody except John has given evidence of reading a book I
have posted about, but no one seems to have objected to that content either.

Over a year ago maybe we overdid it on politics, and lost a few people who
weren't contributing much anyway.  Good riddance.
?  At least people were thinking about an important topic.?

So, Spike, I disagree - this is a proper for forum for anything that
doesn't bring everyone down on him
? (like we did John, and he backed off)?
.  Or her.?
?  You have no reason to apologize to anyone.

bill w?


On Sun, Dec 17, 2017 at 8:48 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Will Steinberg
> *Sent:* Saturday, December 16, 2017 1:10 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Forbidden Words
>
>
>
> Spike,
>
>
>
> >?Regardless of any value judgment on Hillary Clinton's scruples or
> corruption (for what it's worth, I think she is indeed corrupt and did
> indeed do much of the bad stuff she has been accused of,) could I kindly
> ask:
>
>
>
> >?What the fuck does Hillary Clinton's treatment of classified files have
> to do with the topic of this email?
>
>
>
> >?You're a proponent of logic, I assume?
>
>
>
> >?Try to use it...not to be critical but, can we keep away from the
> non-sequiturs?  Isn't that the kind of thing JKC bugged us all with during
> the election?  Unless you're making some kind of oblique joke at John.  Not
> sure.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Will,
>
>
>
> Criticism noted and deserved, my apologies.
>
>
>
> But not for non-sequiturs.
>
>
>
> A marvelous feature of Exi-Chat is the chaotic formation of ideas that
> occurs here, often based on misunderstandings of the original intent of the
> author.  Recently Jeff Davis and I coinvented a concept for an aerospace
> system based on my misunderstanding of an idea he posted. A
> misunderstanding of an idea about prime numbers, posted to this forum in
> 1998 led to a non-sequitur and a second misunderstanding by Hal Finney,
> which may have led to? BitCoin.  BitCoin resulted in Jeff Davis? recent
> good fortune, which empowered him to propose to me a crazy notion, which
> led to our co-invention of this system.
>
>
>
> The whole thing reminds me of that excellent James Burke TV series
> Connections.
>
>
>
> I see the freeform unrestrained and mostly unmoderated nature of ExI-chat
> as the source of its rich weirdness and enduring strength.
>
>
>
> Regarding posts with political content: whether we like it or not,
> Americans must face the persistent consequences of what happened in 2015
> and 2016.  I agree this is not a proper forum for that.  But that
> discussion is likely to continue for a generation and beyond.
>
>
>
> 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 spike66 at att.net  Sun Dec 17 15:36:19 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 07:36:19 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaBQUZg=TD6hoXh+mM0VXAX3SPQbt+1ESE4Wj2U1qaczw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb1byy-soTCexk7Dx_nURE4qnJpniPhy_8sEEsx5rPuYw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyH-XXBaZpJY+m+Q1mFXWABJLCqWSR=Yu+9VC7Gyf=T_rg@mail.gmail.com>
 <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaBQUZg=TD6hoXh+mM0VXAX3SPQbt+1ESE4Wj2U1qaczw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <022d01d3774c$c97404c0$5c5c0e40$@att.net>

 

 

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



>?Over a year ago maybe we overdid it on politics, and lost a few people who weren't contributing much anyway.  Good riddance?

In at least one very notable case, bad riddance, bad for us.

>?At least people were thinking about an important topic?

 

It has me thinking hard about inner circles.  If a government has an inner circle, if that concept exists (and I think it does) who gets to be part of it?  If government people can have their private email seized and scrutinized long after it is written, which government people can be out of reach of that?  ?

>?So, Spike, I disagree - this is a proper for forum for anything that doesn't bring everyone down on him?

And even if it does.

?>? (like we did John, and he backed off)?

.  Or her.?

 

Wait, what?  John is an or her?  I always though of him or her as a him.  But now that you mention it, I don?t recall he or she ever specified his or her gender.

 

>?You have no reason to apologize to anyone.  bill w?

 

Oh OK, my apologies for the unnecessary apology.  If that new one is unnecessary, I am stuck in a recursive loop from which there is no escape.  Eh, no harm, it is a result of many years of socialization into proper decorum in public.  Somehow that decorum occasionally spills over into this forum, which is a fun, weird exception to public.  

 

This is not a decorum forum.  To make it one, we would need a quorum.  Then we need guy to score ?em.  We lose points if we bore ?em.  The wordplay we outpour em.

 

spike

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Dec 17 18:25:20 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 13:25:20 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaBQUZg=TD6hoXh+mM0VXAX3SPQbt+1ESE4Wj2U1qaczw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb1byy-soTCexk7Dx_nURE4qnJpniPhy_8sEEsx5rPuYw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyH-XXBaZpJY+m+Q1mFXWABJLCqWSR=Yu+9VC7Gyf=T_rg@mail.gmail.com>
 <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv1M13L27QQw5O+Q+esr7fJxisYeH-4vb3kQZhJdJdVJKA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Dec 17, 2017 at 10:22 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

?> ?
> Nobody except John has given evidence of reading a book I have posted
> about,
>

?
I've also read
? ?
Doudna's book "A Crack in Creation",  CRISPR in which she was instrumental
in developing has revolutionized genetic editing
? ?
so I'd be surprised if she doesn't win the Nobel Prize in the next year or
two. It also makes Gene Drive feasible which means for the
? first
? ?
time
? ?
we have the power to make a species like the mosquito go extinct.
Government agencies have been wringing their hands over actually using it
but every minute they delay mosquitos kill another 2 people and cause 4 or
5 more to become very sick. Fortunately some non governmental agencies are
starting to show an interest.

> ?> ?
> this is a proper for forum for anything that doesn't bring everyone down
> on him
>
> At one time this list had only 2 rules, don't be boring and don't be
stupid.

> > So, Spike,  You have no reason to apologize to anyone
>
?Yes, I disagree with Spike about politics from time to time but I think
without Spike this list would have died several years ago, and he's just
about the most optimistic and even tempered person I know. ?No apology
needed Spike!

?> ?
> ? (like we did John, and he backed off)?
> .  Or her.?
> ?
>

?
Or it. Chess and GO programs aren't the only programs that have improved,
chatbots
? ?
have too.

John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Dec 17 18:34:23 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 12:34:23 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <022d01d3774c$c97404c0$5c5c0e40$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb1byy-soTCexk7Dx_nURE4qnJpniPhy_8sEEsx5rPuYw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyH-XXBaZpJY+m+Q1mFXWABJLCqWSR=Yu+9VC7Gyf=T_rg@mail.gmail.com>
 <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaBQUZg=TD6hoXh+mM0VXAX3SPQbt+1ESE4Wj2U1qaczw@mail.gmail.com>
 <022d01d3774c$c97404c0$5c5c0e40$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZbU+GQH8coBYYbvyS3ys+r3iBfNrkSYR9UMs+t7e0SyQ@mail.gmail.com>

John wrote - for the
? first
? ?
time
? ?
we have the power to make a species like the mosquito go extinct.
Government agencies have been wringing their hands over actually using it
but every minute they delay mosquitos kill another 2 people and cause 4 or
5 more to become very sick. Fortunately some non governmental agencies are
starting to show an interest.

John, I think it will happen somewhere overseas before it gets through our
dithering agencies (of which we have way too many).  Ditto gene editing of
humans.  Not necessarily a bad thing.  Conservative Christians have a lot
of say there that they don't in many other countries - China, India,
Ethiopia, etc.

bill w




bill w

On Sun, Dec 17, 2017 at 9:36 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
>
> >?Over a year ago maybe we overdid it on politics, and lost a few people
> who weren't contributing much anyway.  Good riddance?
>
> In at least one very notable case, bad riddance, bad for us.
>
> >?At least people were thinking about an important topic?
>
>
>
> It has me thinking hard about inner circles.  If a government has an inner
> circle, if that concept exists (and I think it does) who gets to be part of
> it?  If government people can have their private email seized and
> scrutinized long after it is written, which government people can be out of
> reach of that?  ?
>
> >?So, Spike, I disagree - this is a proper for forum for anything that
> doesn't bring everyone down on him?
>
> And even if it does.
>
> ?>? (like we did John, and he backed off)?
>
> .  Or her.?
>
>
>
> Wait, what?  John is an or her?  I always though of him or her as a him.
> But now that you mention it, I don?t recall he or she ever specified his or
> her gender.
>
>
>
> >?You have no reason to apologize to anyone.  bill w?
>
>
>
> Oh OK, my apologies for the unnecessary apology.  If that new one is
> unnecessary, I am stuck in a recursive loop from which there is no escape.
> Eh, no harm, it is a result of many years of socialization into proper
> decorum in public.  Somehow that decorum occasionally spills over into this
> forum, which is a fun, weird exception to public.
>
>
>
> This is not a decorum forum.  To make it one, we would need a quorum.
> Then we need guy to score ?em.  We lose points if we bore ?em.  The
> wordplay we outpour em.
>
>
>
> 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 avant at sollegro.com  Sun Dec 17 19:26:13 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 11:26:13 -0800
Subject: [ExI] UFOs again or AAVs for the first time
Message-ID: <02b2bf9157ce5be9fc28f7bff5def86d.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

It has just occurred to me that the footage I posted could be be part of
an elaborate hoax by the aerospace contractors in order to elicit funding
from congress under the pretense of "keeping up with the aliens".

Spike, given your history with Lockheed Martin, I consider you to be an
industry insider. Do you think this might be something the defense
contractors  would do?

How about you, Keith? You are pretty knowledgeable about UFO hoaxing. What
do you think?

Stuart LaForge




From spike66 at att.net  Sun Dec 17 20:36:14 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 12:36:14 -0800
Subject: [ExI] UFOs again or AAVs for the first time
In-Reply-To: <02b2bf9157ce5be9fc28f7bff5def86d.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <02b2bf9157ce5be9fc28f7bff5def86d.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <005f01d37776$af957410$0ec05c30$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Stuart LaForge
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2017 11:26 AM
To: Exi Chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] UFOs again or AAVs for the first time

>...It has just occurred to me that the footage I posted could be be part of
an elaborate hoax by the aerospace contractors in order to elicit funding
from congress under the pretense of "keeping up with the aliens".

>...Spike, given your history with Lockheed Martin, I consider you to be an
industry insider. Do you think this might be something the defense
contractors  would do?

>...How about you, Keith? You are pretty knowledgeable about UFO hoaxing.
What do you think?

>...Stuart LaForge



Any UFO story should be treated as erroneous, a hoax, a mistake, a gag,
something other than what it appears, until proven otherwise, and possibly
even after proven otherwise, because the proof is suspect.

I managed to score tickets to a premier of that new Star Wars movie Thursday
night (it is good (better than Rogue One (even if they don't have any really
cool new robot stuff like K2.))))  In one scene, the Empire battleships show
up after they come down from light speed, shoomp shoomp shoomp, just kinda
appear.  In real life in this universe... that ain't happening.  Not now,
now later, not in a galaxy far far away and long ago, we just aren't going
there and haven't been there.

Without some kind of Hollywoody magic, spacecraft that size will not cross
interstellar gaps.

In the bit bucket with it Avant.

spike




From spike66 at att.net  Mon Dec 18 03:47:24 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 19:47:24 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1M13L27QQw5O+Q+esr7fJxisYeH-4vb3kQZhJdJdVJKA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
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 <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net>

 

 

On Behalf Of John Clark



>>? So, Spike,  You have no reason to apologize to anyone 

?

>?Yes, I disagree with Spike about politics from time to time but I think without Spike this list would have died several years ago, and he's just about the most optimistic and even tempered person I know. ?No apology needed Spike!

 

 

 

John, you are too kind, sir.

 

I will be away from the keyboard for a couple weeks.  I will have a story to tell when I get back.  No flame wars while I am away please.  

 

Later!

 

spike

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From interzone at gmail.com  Mon Dec 18 17:52:01 2017
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2017 12:52:01 -0500
Subject: [ExI] AI moves on to poker
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH-dqKXkPAaDK+4DSfBKjmom_02BFGdYvHdHebkwgFT7wg@mail.gmail.com>

With the recent discussions on Go and chess, I thought some might be
interested in a game that is generally very difficult for AI since there is
hidden information in it, poker.  This was just published in Science, and
elaborates on an AI system that was able to do very well against highly
skilled players.  The underlying mechanics are significantly different than
those used for Go and chess, but the gains are impressive as they are not
dependent on domain knowledge of poker, or human data.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/12/15/science.aao1733/tab-pdf
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Mon Dec 18 17:54:53 2017
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2017 12:54:53 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <000001d377b2$eae0c740$c0a255c0$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAKrqSyGP11NUMCt2dP1EpO3jgjOgXhPUMaX30e=y5q7t+5C=tA@mail.gmail.com>

Sorry, Spike--didn't mean any offense.  Just that such political nonsense
belies your intelligence, especially when a lot of people saying the same
kind of thing truly are unintelligent.

Still friends? :D

Cheers,

-Will
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Dec 18 19:03:38 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:03:38 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyGP11NUMCt2dP1EpO3jgjOgXhPUMaX30e=y5q7t+5C=tA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1XqKCWQtNHFEXZeEZZFFhH22JbQAvx6krou3HHOZ0w7w@mail.gmail.com>
 <002201d37683$3d679bf0$b836d3d0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEaZb+XqyC10Fs8j_7FkksP7zmDbaaV6sU9Ofpn2j6ZJ8Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <004f01d3768d$c8f5e1e0$5ae1a5a0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEb1byy-soTCexk7Dx_nURE4qnJpniPhy_8sEEsx5rPuYw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyH-XXBaZpJY+m+Q1mFXWABJLCqWSR=Yu+9VC7Gyf=T_rg@mail.gmail.com>
 <01f501d37746$0e9d6b10$2bd84130$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbX9=48rUZgQJeNYAhHzrLkAU9xD_6sLUctBK_f3X2_2A@mail.gmail.com>

Can't speak for Spike, but in response to your comment, it doesn't take an
intelligent person to make any sort of derogative comment about Trump. We
can all see what he's made of.  bill w

On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 11:54 AM, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Sorry, Spike--didn't mean any offense.  Just that such political nonsense
> belies your intelligence, especially when a lot of people saying the same
> kind of thing truly are unintelligent.
>
> Still friends? :D
>
> Cheers,
>
> -Will
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Tue Dec 19 20:31:31 2017
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2017 12:31:31 -0800
Subject: [ExI] UFOs again or AAVs for the first time
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB6O0zHdvXjN9JKuoK2jytRLv1xoDxgqZO_O2o3W2TyuuQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 9:55 AM,   "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

Stuart LaForge wrote:

snip

>>...How about you, Keith? You are pretty knowledgeable about UFO hoaxing.
>> What do you think?

I think they are all hoaxes.  Of course, the ones not done by humans
could be aliens joy riding around to befuddle the primitive humans per
Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker's Guide.

snip

(Spike)

> In real life in this universe... that ain't happening.  Not now,
> now later, not in a galaxy far far away and long ago, we just aren't going
> there and haven't been there.
>
> Without some kind of Hollywoody magic, spacecraft that size will not cross
> interstellar gaps.

That really depends on us living in the base reality and not a
simulation.  I have been suspicious since Shoemaker-Levy.  I mean, how
likely was that?


Keith


From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Dec 21 06:48:47 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 22:48:47 -0800
Subject: [ExI] UFOs again or AAVs for the first time
Message-ID: <7be74d133211deb3720dc1567b8ec2d8.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Keith Henson wrote:

> I think they are all hoaxes.  Of course, the ones not done by humans
> could be aliens joy riding around to befuddle the primitive humans per
> Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker's Guide.

I doubt it would be meat aliens for the same reasons that Spike likes to
refer to as the "canned monkeys" problem.

Then again, who knows? With a few thousands of years evolutionary head
start on us, they could have genetically engineered themselves to be as
adapted to deep space as tardigrades are. Able to stop all metabolism for
centuries at a time, encased in some kind of cyst-like cocoons that dry
out. Radiation resistance, DNA repair enzymes, no need to eat, drink, or
breath, the whole nine yards. Then when the autopilot reaches the
destination you just add water . . . and instant ET.

Might be why UFO sightings are relatively common at sea with the craft
associated with the water. These latest reports sure are.


Spike wrote:

> In real life in this universe... that ain't happening.  Not now,
> now later, not in a galaxy far far away and long ago, we just aren't going
> there and haven't been there.
>
> Without some kind of Hollywoody magic, spacecraft that size will not cross
> interstellar gaps.

Are you aware of the Alcubierre drive, Spike? It's a solution to
Einstein's equations of GR that allows the use of negative energy to form
a bubble of flat space-time that a ship can safely sit in while the space
behind the bubble expands like dark energy and the space in front of the
bubble contracts like gravity.

The ship is thereby carried along by the flow of space around the bubble
and as John Clark points out, space can move as fast as it wants, even
FTL.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

Keith wrote:

> That really depends on us living in the base reality and not a
> simulation.  I have been suspicious since Shoemaker-Levy.  I mean, how
> likely was that?

It is not all that unlikely. Jupiter has a huge gravity well. Similar
things have been witnessed before. On June 18, 1178, five English monks
witnessed an asteroid that formed a 22km impact crater on the moon and
wrote about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno_(crater)

But you are right, Simulation Hypothesis opens a huge can of worm for
UFOs. They might not be spacecraft at all. They could be a localized
interface for the simulators to interact with the simulation. Analogous to
the mouse pointer you use to push virtual people around in the Sims game.

That certainly would explain why UFOs seem to defy the laws of physics as
we know them.

Stuart LaForge








From avant at sollegro.com  Sat Dec 23 08:22:02 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 00:22:02 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
Message-ID: <ab43a4a5a20a632c36db5ae479c9cbdc.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Bill W wrote:

> ?How can you be sure of anything?

It's not about being sure. It can't be so in our fundamentally quantum
universe. It's about probabilities not certainty. It's about constantly
updating your model to fit any new data. Your brain evolved to learn, not
to know.

No physical theory is ever guaranteed to correspond to the real world.
Such are only contigently true until a phenomenon occurs that violates
their premises or until a theory of greater scope or accuracy comes along.

Will Steinberg wrote:

>> I talk a lot here about yin and yang.  Not trying to be
>> hand-wavy...only inasmuch as all empirical observations in the modern
>> western oeuvre still are based on, er, turtles.

There does not seem to be any upper limit on the size and mass of black
holes. The universe could be an infinite swarm of black holes inside
bigger black holes all of them constantly colliding and merging. Each
black hole with it's own internal vacuum state / zero point energy, each
successively larger one at a lower energy level but never actually zero.

Event horizons might simply be boundaries between different vacuum states.

>> Your interaction of 2 black holes is the creator of our universe of
>> duality: consuming versus consumed.  Inwards-pulling versus
>> outwards-seeking.  Death versus life.  Entropy versus extropy.

It is infinitely recursive dualities all the way down.


>> Consciousness, aka God, is the symmetry for death.  The stuff going
>> outwards from the singularity.  Perhaps.  Makes sense to me.

A bit metaphysical for my tastes but sure why not?

>> Still not sure where the beginning is.

Due to your brain's limited processing speed, your visual "now" is 80,000
nanoseconds in the past plus one nanosecond in the past per foot the event
is away from you. It's even further in the past if you are talking about
your auditory or tactile now.

Furthermore you cannot distinguish the temporal order or causal
relationship between any two events less than 80,000 nanoseconds apart.

If there can be no sharply defined and meaningful now, then how could
there be a sharp meaningful beginning? Therefore there is no beginning,
there is no now, and there is no end.

Just continuous relative time with one moment blending imperceptibly into
the next. Running at different rates for different observers and in
different orthogonal directions for observers in different causal cells.

Stuart LaForge




From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Dec 23 16:34:50 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 10:34:50 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <ab43a4a5a20a632c36db5ae479c9cbdc.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <ab43a4a5a20a632c36db5ae479c9cbdc.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbEC3avRXygTt41=2xi8drzL_rGw=2ALE1+Q6J+wV7xLQ@mail.gmail.com>

Bill W wrote:

> ?How can you be sure of anything?

Stuart wrote - It's not about being sure. It can't be so in our
fundamentally quantum universe. It's about probabilities not certainty.
It's about constantly updating your model to fit any new data. Your brain
evolved to learn, not to know.

No physical theory is ever guaranteed to correspond to the real world.
Such are only contigently true until a phenomenon occurs that violates
their premises or until a theory of greater scope or accuracy comes along.

bill w replies - The security of certainty does not belong in science -
agreed.  However, nonscientists seek it with a vengeance.  I'd argue that
it is the basis of most religions.  Neurotics seek it desperately so they
can quit worrying and dithering about decisions that are anything but
clear.  Being told about probability is the last thing a nonscientist wants
to hear.  If you don't know for sure, then what do you know?

Stuart's explanation is fine but it's not what people want.  Certainty is
what they want and they can't get it from science, so they go elsewhere.
Of course they wind up delusional and irrational.
I guess that's the best we can hope for until evolution is kicked up a
notch with germline engineering.

On Sat, Dec 23, 2017 at 2:22 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> Bill W wrote:
>
> > ?How can you be sure of anything?
>
> It's not about being sure. It can't be so in our fundamentally quantum
> universe. It's about probabilities not certainty. It's about constantly
> updating your model to fit any new data. Your brain evolved to learn, not
> to know.
>
> No physical theory is ever guaranteed to correspond to the real world.
> Such are only contigently true until a phenomenon occurs that violates
> their premises or until a theory of greater scope or accuracy comes along.
>
> Will Steinberg wrote:
>
> >> I talk a lot here about yin and yang.  Not trying to be
> >> hand-wavy...only inasmuch as all empirical observations in the modern
> >> western oeuvre still are based on, er, turtles.
>
> There does not seem to be any upper limit on the size and mass of black
> holes. The universe could be an infinite swarm of black holes inside
> bigger black holes all of them constantly colliding and merging. Each
> black hole with it's own internal vacuum state / zero point energy, each
> successively larger one at a lower energy level but never actually zero.
>
> Event horizons might simply be boundaries between different vacuum states.
>
> >> Your interaction of 2 black holes is the creator of our universe of
> >> duality: consuming versus consumed.  Inwards-pulling versus
> >> outwards-seeking.  Death versus life.  Entropy versus extropy.
>
> It is infinitely recursive dualities all the way down.
>
>
> >> Consciousness, aka God, is the symmetry for death.  The stuff going
> >> outwards from the singularity.  Perhaps.  Makes sense to me.
>
> A bit metaphysical for my tastes but sure why not?
>
> >> Still not sure where the beginning is.
>
> Due to your brain's limited processing speed, your visual "now" is 80,000
> nanoseconds in the past plus one nanosecond in the past per foot the event
> is away from you. It's even further in the past if you are talking about
> your auditory or tactile now.
>
> Furthermore you cannot distinguish the temporal order or causal
> relationship between any two events less than 80,000 nanoseconds apart.
>
> If there can be no sharply defined and meaningful now, then how could
> there be a sharp meaningful beginning? Therefore there is no beginning,
> there is no now, and there is no end.
>
> Just continuous relative time with one moment blending imperceptibly into
> the next. Running at different rates for different observers and in
> different orthogonal directions for observers in different causal cells.
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Sat Dec 23 18:29:27 2017
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 13:29:27 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbEC3avRXygTt41=2xi8drzL_rGw=2ALE1+Q6J+wV7xLQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ab43a4a5a20a632c36db5ae479c9cbdc.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEbEC3avRXygTt41=2xi8drzL_rGw=2ALE1+Q6J+wV7xLQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyFmOXfudAb+izTFGuexRxCmnWVeF2rmScmkGrihL0NkAg@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 23, 2017 11:37, "William Flynn Wallace" <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

 Of course they wind up delusional and irrational.
I guess that's the best we can hope for until evolution is kicked up a
notch with germline engineering.


Jesus, and you wonder why they end up angry?

Keep looking down from your ivory tower of babel.  Seriously, all you
intelligentsia who write those people off have done far more damage to
public acceptance of science than any pastor or factory worker, or King
Trump himself ever could.

The comeuppance will cost us the world.
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Dec 23 23:30:55 2017
From: spike66 at att.net (spike66)
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 13:30:55 -1000
Subject: [ExI] Forbidden Words
Message-ID: <201712240001.vBO01ZoF012160@hlin.zia.io>

No offense taken.? I don't defend the current potus.? Spike


Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> Date: 12/18/17  11:03 AM  (GMT-08:00) To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> Subject: Re: [ExI] Forbidden Words 
Can't speak for Spike, but in response to your comment, it doesn't take an intelligent person to make any sort of derogative comment about Trump. We can all see what he's made of.? bill w
On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 11:54 AM, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry, Spike--didn't mean any offense.? Just that such political nonsense belies your intelligence, especially when a lot of people saying the same kind of thing truly are unintelligent.
Still friends? :D
Cheers,
-Will

_______________________________________________

extropy-chat mailing list

extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org

http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat




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From avant at sollegro.com  Sun Dec 24 04:12:32 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 20:12:32 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
Message-ID: <95204cd749dfad36aa4e54fe7baf5127.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Bill W wrote:

> The security of certainty does not belong in science -
> agreed.  However, nonscientists seek it with a vengeance.  I'd argue that
> it is the basis of most religions.  Neurotics seek it desperately so they
> can quit worrying and dithering about decisions that are anything but
> clear.  Being told about probability is the last thing a nonscientist wants
> to hear.  If you don't know for sure, then what do you know?

Good question. What do you know for sure? How certain are you of what you
will have for dinner next thursday? That your flight will be on time? How
sure are you of the date you learned to say daddy? How many hairs do you
have on your head?

If you cannot be sure of these simple things, then how can you have the
cheek to seek certainty about the universe? Your brain could not keep
track of its own atoms and you want certainty about life, death, and the
Great Expanse?

Well I have a certainty for you. For one thing, if you have faith the
universe is infinite, you can be certain that whatever you have for dinner
next thursday night, an infinite number of you, in other causal cells will
have something else.

> Stuart's explanation is fine but it's not what people want.  Certainty is
> what they want and they can't get it from science, so they go elsewhere.
> Of course they wind up delusional and irrational.
> I guess that's the best we can hope for until evolution is kicked up a
> notch with germline engineering.

Well what people want is a matter of marketing. They can have certainty
from science if they choose to truly believe the universe is infinite.
It's a form of immortality to always be alive *somewhere*.

Neurotics need not dither over minor decisions, if they truly believed in
an infinite universe, they could rest assured that whatever they chose,
they were destined to choose all along. And an infinite number of them in
other causal cells chose differently.

How much more certainty out of life could one ask?

Stuart LaForge





From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sun Dec 24 19:48:26 2017
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2017 11:48:26 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Funny Christmas video
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5u3rgjQ7eEYF2H89JCWhz-ONbHRUc6QDt=j1VjkO3XKg@mail.gmail.com>

I don't do this very often.

https://vimeo.com/246983302

The one following is also a hoot.

Best wishes,

Keith


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Dec 25 19:21:31 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2017 13:21:31 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <95204cd749dfad36aa4e54fe7baf5127.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
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 If you don't know for sure, then what do you know?  bill w

Good question. What do you know for sure?  stuart

It is possible that my statement was misinterpreted.  I was speaking as if
I were the common person who wants certainty.

For myself, I just don't use the concept of certainty.  As a military man
once said, every battle plan crumbles when the boots hit the ground.  Too
many variables in life to be sure of anything and enough experience to show
certainty is a fool's hope.

Yes, there are plenty of fools around - casinos aren't lacking for
customers, eh?  Like second marriages - the triumph of hope over
experience.

But - I have no idea why the concept of infinity is tied to other copies of
everyone.  Or fate.      Stuart ???

bill w

On Sat, Dec 23, 2017 at 10:12 PM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> Bill W wrote:
>
> > The security of certainty does not belong in science -
> > agreed.  However, nonscientists seek it with a vengeance.  I'd argue that
> > it is the basis of most religions.  Neurotics seek it desperately so they
> > can quit worrying and dithering about decisions that are anything but
> > clear.  Being told about probability is the last thing a nonscientist
> wants
> > to hear.  If you don't know for sure, then what do you know?
>
> Good question. What do you know for sure? How certain are you of what you
> will have for dinner next thursday? That your flight will be on time? How
> sure are you of the date you learned to say daddy? How many hairs do you
> have on your head?
>
> If you cannot be sure of these simple things, then how can you have the
> cheek to seek certainty about the universe? Your brain could not keep
> track of its own atoms and you want certainty about life, death, and the
> Great Expanse?
>
> Well I have a certainty for you. For one thing, if you have faith the
> universe is infinite, you can be certain that whatever you have for dinner
> next thursday night, an infinite number of you, in other causal cells will
> have something else.
>
> > Stuart's explanation is fine but it's not what people want.  Certainty is
> > what they want and they can't get it from science, so they go elsewhere.
> > Of course they wind up delusional and irrational.
> > I guess that's the best we can hope for until evolution is kicked up a
> > notch with germline engineering.
>
> Well what people want is a matter of marketing. They can have certainty
> from science if they choose to truly believe the universe is infinite.
> It's a form of immortality to always be alive *somewhere*.
>
> Neurotics need not dither over minor decisions, if they truly believed in
> an infinite universe, they could rest assured that whatever they chose,
> they were destined to choose all along. And an infinite number of them in
> other causal cells chose differently.
>
> How much more certainty out of life could one ask?
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Wed Dec 27 17:11:22 2017
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2017 12:11:22 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin Commercial
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2yzbd+ac7OFE+-NiD-AmBsVtM=afS5nKrRzd7hrnQO+Q@mail.gmail.com>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeMv9uKpAZg&feature=em-subs_digest
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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Dec 28 01:15:04 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2017 17:15:04 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
Message-ID: <81d65cad736c7cc1f2b9ae5b66ea1090.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

BillW wrote:

> It is possible that my statement was misinterpreted.  I was speaking >as if
> I were the common person who wants certainty.

Misinterpretation or not, it was the perfect opportunity to answer you as
if you were the common person who wants certainty. No slight intended to
you or anyone else. Just an opportunity to appeal to those who prefer
dogma to discovery. Feel free to share the good news.

> Yes, there are plenty of fools around - casinos aren't lacking for
> customers, eh?  Like second marriages - the triumph of hope over
> experience.

When experience fails, as it often does when environmental changes are
sudden and unexpected, hopeful foolishness is not a bad fallback option.
>From an evolutionary perspective that is.

> But - I have no idea why the concept of infinity is tied to other
>copies of
> everyone.  Or fate.      Stuart ???

A fair question. It is a mathematically provable statement that the power
set of a finite set is also finite. Potentially very large but still
finite. This is true even if the original finite set is a subset of an
infinite set.

To put it in layman's terms. Imagine that causal cells are like boxes of
Legos with atoms being the bricks.

The small black holes are like small boxes of Legos that only contain a
few hundred bricks. The larger causal cells, like our observable universe,
are like very large deluxe Lego sets with several thousand bricks.

Obviously you can build many different things with either set. But you can
build a larger variety of things with the larger set. If N is the number
of bricks in the set, then the number of possible structures that can be
built with that set is on the order of 2^N.

If you took an infinite number of 1000 piece Lego sets and gave them to an
infinite number of children who were unable to communicate with each other
or combine Lego sets, the infinite children, would simply by chance build
every possible structure(s) composed of 1000 Lego bricks.

In fact, every possible structure would be duplicated an infinite number
of times even if only 1 in 2^1000 children have identical Lego structures.
That is simply a property of infinity.

In the case of our causal cell, with approximately 10^80 atoms, that is an
incredibly large number of possible structure(s) but nonetheless you are
one of those structures.

And given an infinite number of finite causal cells, all with the same
laws of physics because they are all in the same infinite universe, you
are guaranteed to show up in every possible variation of your life, an
infinite number of times. No different than Legos.

Does that help you understand?

Stuart LaForge







From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Dec 28 01:16:19 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2017 17:16:19 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
Message-ID: <d13fb15e79522a9b1a431f194d9ad7f5.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

BillW wrote:

> It is possible that my statement was misinterpreted.  I was speaking >as if
> I were the common person who wants certainty.

Misinterpretation or not, it was the perfect opportunity to answer you as
if you were the common person who wants certainty. No slight intended to
you or anyone else. Just an opportunity to appeal to those who prefer
dogma to discovery. Feel free to share the good news.

> Yes, there are plenty of fools around - casinos aren't lacking for
> customers, eh?  Like second marriages - the triumph of hope over
> experience.

When experience fails, as it often does when environmental changes are
sudden and unexpected, hopeful foolishness is not a bad fallback option.
>From an evolutionary perspective that is.

> But - I have no idea why the concept of infinity is tied to other
>copies of
> everyone.  Or fate.      Stuart ???

A fair question. It is a mathematically provable statement that the power
set of a finite set is also finite. Potentially very large but still
finite. This is true even if the original finite set is a subset of an
infinite set.

To put it in layman's terms. Imagine that causal cells are like boxes of
Legos with atoms being the bricks.

The small black holes are like small boxes of Legos that only contain a
few hundred bricks. The larger causal cells, like our observable universe,
are like very large deluxe Lego sets with several thousand bricks.

Obviously you can build many different things with either set. But you can
build a larger variety of things with the larger set. If N is the number
of bricks in the set, then the number of possible structures that can be
built with that set is on the order of 2^N.

If you took an infinite number of 1000 piece Lego sets and gave them to an
infinite number of children who were unable to communicate with each other
or combine Lego sets, the infinite children, would simply by chance build
every possible structure(s) composed of 1000 Lego bricks.

In fact, every possible structure would be duplicated an infinite number
of times even if only 1 in 2^1000 children have identical Lego structures.
That is simply a property of infinity.

In the case of our causal cell, with approximately 10^80 atoms, that is an
incredibly large number of possible structure(s) but nonetheless you are
one of those structures.

And given an infinite number of finite causal cells, all with the same
laws of physics because they are all in the same infinite universe, you
are guaranteed to show up in every possible variation of your life, an
infinite number of times. No different than Legos.

Does that help you understand?

Stuart LaForge








From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Dec 28 16:40:05 2017
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2017 10:40:05 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <d13fb15e79522a9b1a431f194d9ad7f5.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYtxhECspCnnoquesZ89RwQ5us0FR+gPUtuVF7hpLW_cg@mail.gmail.com>

Just an opportunity to appeal to those who prefer
dogma to discovery. Feel free to share the good news. stuart
---
You have just described a big difference between conservatives and
liberals.  Conservatives are motivated mainly by fear, and what is the best
cure for that?  Certainty.  Which dogma gives. More religious, more
irrational.   bill w

When experience fails, as it often does when environmental changes are
sudden and unexpected, hopeful foolishness is not a bad fallback option.
>From an evolutionary perspective that is.  stuart
--
It makes me wonder how depression because so entrenched in many people,
because what they tend to do in a crisis and sit and worry and feel bad.
There are actually some psych studies showing that unwarranted optimism can
be a very good strategy.  A false confidence is better than no confidence,
which breeds inactivity.  Fools, as you say.
bill w
----
causal cells - what? (I googled it and got nothing)  If you have followed
my posts over the few years I've been around,and sometimes, notably, the
absence of them, you realize, with a wry smile, that you have left me
entirely in the dust with your explanation of multiple mes.  What I want to
know is just who or what is putting together all these infinite
possibilities?  These legos.  The proverbial monkeys?    I don't buy the
argument that if it can happen, it will.  Does the universe have nothing to
do but sit around and make copies of me differing only by one cell?  bill w

not through but will send for the nonce

On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> BillW wrote:
>
> > It is possible that my statement was misinterpreted.  I was speaking >as
> if
> > I were the common person who wants certainty.
>
> Misinterpretation or not, it was the perfect opportunity to answer you as
> if you were the common person who wants certainty. No slight intended to
> you or anyone else. Just an opportunity to appeal to those who prefer
> dogma to discovery. Feel free to share the good news.
>
> > Yes, there are plenty of fools around - casinos aren't lacking for
> > customers, eh?  Like second marriages - the triumph of hope over
> > experience.
>
> When experience fails, as it often does when environmental changes are
> sudden and unexpected, hopeful foolishness is not a bad fallback option.
> From an evolutionary perspective that is.
>
> > But - I have no idea why the concept of infinity is tied to other
> >copies of
> > everyone.  Or fate.      Stuart ???
>
> A fair question. It is a mathematically provable statement that the power
> set of a finite set is also finite. Potentially very large but still
> finite. This is true even if the original finite set is a subset of an
> infinite set.
>
> To put it in layman's terms. Imagine that causal cells are like boxes of
> Legos with atoms being the bricks.
>
> The small black holes are like small boxes of Legos that only contain a
> few hundred bricks. The larger causal cells, like our observable universe,
> are like very large deluxe Lego sets with several thousand bricks.
>
> Obviously you can build many different things with either set. But you can
> build a larger variety of things with the larger set. If N is the number
> of bricks in the set, then the number of possible structures that can be
> built with that set is on the order of 2^N.
>
> If you took an infinite number of 1000 piece Lego sets and gave them to an
> infinite number of children who were unable to communicate with each other
> or combine Lego sets, the infinite children, would simply by chance build
> every possible structure(s) composed of 1000 Lego bricks.
>
> In fact, every possible structure would be duplicated an infinite number
> of times even if only 1 in 2^1000 children have identical Lego structures.
> That is simply a property of infinity.
>
> In the case of our causal cell, with approximately 10^80 atoms, that is an
> incredibly large number of possible structure(s) but nonetheless you are
> one of those structures.
>
> And given an infinite number of finite causal cells, all with the same
> laws of physics because they are all in the same infinite universe, you
> are guaranteed to show up in every possible variation of your life, an
> infinite number of times. No different than Legos.
>
> Does that help you understand?
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From avant at sollegro.com  Fri Dec 29 22:07:10 2017
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2017 14:07:10 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
Message-ID: <6b3053874e2154c38decc4da1d192e84.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Bill W wrote:

>> Just an opportunity to appeal to those who prefer
>> dogma to discovery. Feel free to share the good news.

> You have just described a big difference between conservatives and
> liberals.  Conservatives are motivated mainly by fear, and what is the
> best cure for that?  Certainty.  Which dogma gives. More religious, more
> irrational.

I am against dogma in general. But if dogma fills an emotional need for
security, it should be as rational a dogma as possible.

Two satellites designed to map our cosmic microwave background, WMAP and
Planck have both reported that there is a greater than 50% chance that the
universe is either flat or open. Both of those geometries are infinite.

Therefore, as bets go, betting that the universe is infinite is at least a
rational one. Perhaps one could make a case it would also make a more
rational dogma than most.

>> When experience fails, as it often does when environmental changes are
>> sudden and unexpected, hopeful foolishness is not a bad fallback option.
>> From an evolutionary perspective that is.
> --
> It makes me wonder how depression [becomes] so entrenched in many people,
> because what they tend to do in a crisis [is] sit and worry and feel bad.
> There are actually some psych studies showing that unwarranted optimism
> can be a very good strategy.  A false confidence is better than no
> confidence, which breeds inactivity.  Fools, as you say.----

There is really no such thing as unwarranted optimism. There is just our
attitude toward change. To embrace change as being just as likely to be
better as worse than the same old shit is not false confidence. It is
simply confidence.

> causal cells - what? (I googled it and got nothing). If you have followed
> my posts over the few years I've been around,and sometimes, notably, the
> absence of them, you realize, with a wry smile, that you have left me
> entirely in the dust with your explanation of multiple mes.

You can't find causal cells on Google because they are a neologism I
coined here on the list a few months ago. The concept itself has been
steadily evolving as I research it. As far as a rigorous mathematical
definition goes, I have yet to figure that out.

In General Relativity, they seem to be isomorphic with the Schwarzschild
metric with the allowance that two or more such metrics can be nested
inside one another yet remain causally independent except with regard to
the reversal of the direction of the arrow of time, the polarity of the
event horizon, and the vacuum energy of the interior.

So in short causal cells are black holes and their time reversals, also
known as white holes, possibly inside other larger black/white holes.

Those black/white holes with the correct internal vacuum energy, should be
able to support life. So a possible working definition of a causal cell is
a Schwarzschild metric that contains observers and thus constitute
somebody's "observable universe".

Although causal cells are by definition certainly *not* the entire
universe but instead simply a finite and causally self-contained region of
space-time in a  universe which is itself infinite in space and time.

Thus from the outside, causal cells have only the properties of
black/white holes. i.e. mass, spin, and charge. But from the inside, they
are "observable universes" in their own right.

> What I want
> to know is just who or what is putting together all these infinite
> possibilities?  These legos.  The proverbial monkeys?    I don't buy the
> argument that if it can happen, it will.  Does the universe have nothing
> to do but sit around and make copies of me differing only by one cell?

Nobody is putting together atoms to make you. It is just the truly
universal laws of physics like gravity, thermodynamics, and entropy
driving and constraining reality.

You are no more, or less, miraculous than water running down hill. If the
ingredients are present and the laws of physics are in place, your
existence is compulsory in a very small percentage of causal cells. Which,
if the universe is infinite, is an infinite number of them.

You are not what the universe *does*, you are a part of what the universe
*is*. The universe, like stable polities, are ruled by laws, and not men
or gods or even machines.

The whole trick of it is to figure out what those laws are.

Stuart LaForge





From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Fri Dec 29 23:13:09 2017
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2017 18:13:09 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <6b3053874e2154c38decc4da1d192e84.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <6b3053874e2154c38decc4da1d192e84.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyFXfqEXx-tzr0wz1yMHisF0PHUMNH-2qV2tAGa+-aB_OQ@mail.gmail.com>

Stuart--

Wondering what you think about what it means between if your black hole and
another if they have both been swallowed by a third?  What if they are the
only pair of black holes in a long string of monotonic swallowings?  All
these permutations of cell linking would exist too.  So there are infinite
structures of casual cells as well.

This would lead me to believe that what you call causal cells are MUCH more
sense and foamy than you're letting on.

Possible answer is that:

1) EVERYTHING is black holes, big and small.

2) If we are just patterns of causal cell linking, perhaps we cannot [yet?]
see certain attributes of the units within this network, such as the speed
of pattern accretion or separation, which we witness with universal
expansion.

3) I have a feeling that the boundaries of these cells might fade when they
are very densely accreted in the "black hole swallowing level of
abstraction" unit.  I.e. When your string of black holes has more beads
than neighboring strings.  This unit would look like a helix in time, I
think, according to your stuff.

So we are black hole time helices?  And fate is whatever actions of them
give birth to probability distributions in reality.  Some kind of
conservation of timespring tension and handedness.

Two oppositely wound springs would dialectically materialize and unwind
(relative to their spring neighborhood.)
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Fri Dec 29 23:15:49 2017
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2017 18:15:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Dark Energy and Causal Cells
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyFXfqEXx-tzr0wz1yMHisF0PHUMNH-2qV2tAGa+-aB_OQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAKrqSyFXfqEXx-tzr0wz1yMHisF0PHUMNH-2qV2tAGa+-aB_OQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyF1vAuNbtBO36rkV=8uaoaiZoCGa9kHYvtefumVq2msKw@mail.gmail.com>

dense*
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