From spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  1 03:16:50 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:16:50 -0800
Subject: [ExI] safe if you are outside of california
Message-ID: <009601d4cfdd$3672eb10$a358c130$@rainier66.com>

 

 

 

I was looking at washing machines today.  I found out that this machine
inside California causes cancer and reproductive harm.  But if you take it
outside California, apparently it is safe out there.

 

That's it, I'm moving.

 

spike

 

 


Configuration and Overview


*	ADA Compliant

No

*	CEE Tier

Not Rated

*	Prop 65

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY - WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm -
<https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/> www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 15:00:16 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 09:00:16 -0600
Subject: [ExI] safe if you are outside of california
In-Reply-To: <009601d4cfdd$3672eb10$a358c130$@rainier66.com>
References: <009601d4cfdd$3672eb10$a358c130$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa0dqjEX19wmWB1Ti8v6rCwxL31qyqZ=UmusURWT4K7jQ@mail.gmail.com>

I wish all states had laws and regulations for health and safety like
California.  I read a book by Edna Ferber about a caravan to Calif.  Ended
up in Yerba Buena (good grass - maybe they deserve the name back) - San
Francisco.  bill w

On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 9:22 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
>
>
> I was looking at washing machines today.  I found out that this machine
> inside California causes cancer and reproductive harm.  But if you take it
> outside California, apparently it is safe out there.
>
>
>
> That?s it, I?m moving.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
> Configuration and Overview
>
>    - *ADA Compliant*
>
> No
>
>    - *CEE Tier*
>
> Not Rated
>
>    - *Prop 65*
>
> [image: Prop 65 warning]*CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY - WARNING: *Cancer and
> Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
> <https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/>.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  1 15:21:43 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 07:21:43 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
Message-ID: <005101d4d042$7ab3ce10$701b6a30$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark



 

On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 4:10 PM Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com <mailto:interzone at gmail.com> > wrote:

 

 > > I'm not interested in equality of outcome at the expense of all else. 

 

>? it might lead to a more peaceful civilization if the wealth gap were to stop growing or at least stop accelerating?...John K Clark

 

 

I recently set up a Ted Talk on what could be titled the Big Rip in Education, but after thinking it through, decided to decline the opportunity.  I realized the intended audience already knew (better than I do) the problems and challenges.  I only talking about embracing the problem, but wasn?t offering any solutions.

 

John talks a lot about the coming big rip in economic status, a model which holds some merit one might suppose.  The span of wealth ownership is increasing.  I differ from John in that the big resentment I see isn?t on the part of those at the bottom, but rather on the part of those in the middle: millionehhhs hate billionehhhs.  Shrugs.  I don?t have anything against them.

 

My aborted TED talk was about how we are seeing a big rip in education as more and better online materials come available.  There is an ever widening gulf between the students who use it effectively vs those who do not.  Before I expand further on that, I will comment that we are seeing the same thing in other areas in which I am involved: Boy Scouts, Science Olympiad and American Math Competition.  All of these areas are experiencing big rips, which I may expound upon at a some future date.  It is astonishing to watch it unfold.

 

In the education area, I have been watching closely for the past 8 years, since my son has been a consumer.  In that time, I have witnessed the local public schools really get with it, supplying a computer to every student and sufficient bandwidth to drive all of the machines simultaneously.  They have adopted an experimental curriculum called PLP, developed by Summit Learning.  That might be a step in the right direction, but it is very limited and mainstream-ey.  Plenty of the students have discovered better online material such as Khan Academy.

 

The result of these developments is an ever-accelerating big rip in academic achievement.  A yawning gap is forming between those who use the online resources effectively and those who do not.  This is not to say there are fewer students in between, for there are plenty there too.  But the extremes are getting more extreme with time.  We see it happening, but I have no particular insights on how to deal with it.  I don?t see any particular resentment against those who are super-achievers on the part of those who are not.

 

At the same time, I recognize that the job of the teacher is getting harder with time, at least in some ways.  In other ways, it has gotten much easier, particularly in curriculum planning (that is done for them) and the grading process.  The software package takes into account the online achievements and automatically generates the grades.  (!)  The report card isn?t what you and I brought home, but rather several pages of stuff, including text, much or most of which is generated by the software.  (!)  The teacher can add commentary if (s)he wishes, and it uses speech to text, making that aspect of teaching easier.  

 

A new twist I hadn?t seen before was rolled out this year.  Instead of the usual parent-teacher conferences, the students now make up a set of PowerPoint charts and present these to a parent, in a big room with about a dozen other students simultaneously pitching their accomplishments to their parents, while the teacher is present in the room but not interacting directly with any of the students.  (!)

 

In all this, we are seeing an astonishing divergence in accomplishments of the top end vs the bottom end students.  The big rip in education is already ripping wildly.

 

In some ways this makes the job of teaching harder, for while there are plenty of students still plodding along the old-fashioned way, with plenty of parents insisting on the old educational models, it becomes very difficult to even keep up with the best students, while they are still in the middle and even lower grades, such as? seventh.  I can show you examples of students who already have zoomed past their teachers at least in some areas, particularly math and software development.  Cool!  (?If your own offspring happens to be way out there on the right end of the bell curve and accelerating to the right? (otherwise, not so cool.))

 

spike

 

 

 

   

 

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  1 15:34:35 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 07:34:35 -0800
Subject: [ExI] safe if you are outside of california
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa0dqjEX19wmWB1Ti8v6rCwxL31qyqZ=UmusURWT4K7jQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <009601d4cfdd$3672eb10$a358c130$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEa0dqjEX19wmWB1Ti8v6rCwxL31qyqZ=UmusURWT4K7jQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <000901d4d044$46c27690$d44763b0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
ubject: Re: [ExI] safe if you are outside of california

 

>?I wish all states had laws and regulations for health and safety like California.  I read a book by Edna Ferber about a caravan to Calif.  Ended up in Yerba Buena (good grass - maybe they deserve the name back) - San Francisco.  bill w

 

 

 

On the contrary BillW.  California?s Prop 65 is written in such a way as to nullify legitimate warnings on materials which can cause cancer or reproductive harm.  In the old days, consumers could be fairly warned of such things.  But since Prop 65, the law is written so broadly, any building or any product which contains any one of a long list of materials must have a Prop 65 warning.  Result: all buildings, including doghouses, have Prop 65 warnings.  This covers for those buildings which actually contain actual carcinogenic materials.

 

For a while, there was a halfhearted effort on the part of some manufacturers to qualify for non-65 carrier, but even one lawsuit by the thriving lawsuit industry nullifies the effort.  It is much cheaper to just slap the label on there, particularly since it doesn?t actually mean anything.  Now even bottled water can cause cancer or reproductive harm:

 

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article77030402.html

 

We were warned.

 

Perhaps we need legislation that requires a second label that goes on top of the universal Prop 65 cancer warning, which says something like ?No really, this really does cause cancer.?  Then it would go only on those materials or products which really does cause cancer and reproductive harm.  Then we can go round two, suing those manufacturers which caused cancer and had only the first warning but not the second one, so the hapless victim had no way of knowing, with only the universal Prop 65 warning, of the risk.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 9:22 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

 

 

I was looking at washing machines today.  I found out that this machine inside California causes cancer and reproductive harm.  But if you take it outside California, apparently it is safe out there.

 

That?s it, I?m moving.

 

spike

 

 


Configuration and Overview


*	ADA Compliant

No

*	CEE Tier

Not Rated

*	Prop 65

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY - WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm -  <https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/> www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.

 

_______________________________________________
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 foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 16:02:43 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 10:02:43 -0600
Subject: [ExI] safe if you are outside of california
In-Reply-To: <000901d4d044$46c27690$d44763b0$@rainier66.com>
References: <009601d4cfdd$3672eb10$a358c130$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEa0dqjEX19wmWB1Ti8v6rCwxL31qyqZ=UmusURWT4K7jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000901d4d044$46c27690$d44763b0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaTqefm2cAmhE=NJhMsU3x2fu4Q_iD7A6AiKkfnt0Z0rQ@mail.gmail.com>

Oh well, too much of a good thing.  bill w

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 9:39 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *ubject:* Re: [ExI] safe if you are outside of california
>
>
>
> >?I wish all states had laws and regulations for health and safety like
> California.  I read a book by Edna Ferber about a caravan to Calif.  Ended
> up in Yerba Buena (good grass - maybe they deserve the name back) - San
> Francisco.  bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On the contrary BillW.  California?s Prop 65 is written in such a way as
> to nullify legitimate warnings on materials which can cause cancer or
> reproductive harm.  In the old days, consumers could be fairly warned of
> such things.  But since Prop 65, the law is written so broadly, any
> building or any product which contains any one of a long list of materials
> must have a Prop 65 warning.  Result: all buildings, including doghouses,
> have Prop 65 warnings.  This covers for those buildings which actually
> contain actual carcinogenic materials.
>
>
>
> For a while, there was a halfhearted effort on the part of some
> manufacturers to qualify for non-65 carrier, but even one lawsuit by the
> thriving lawsuit industry nullifies the effort.  It is much cheaper to just
> slap the label on there, particularly since it doesn?t actually mean
> anything.  Now even bottled water can cause cancer or reproductive harm:
>
>
>
> https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article77030402.html
>
>
>
> We were warned.
>
>
>
> Perhaps we need legislation that requires a second label that goes on top
> of the universal Prop 65 cancer warning, which says something like ?No
> really, this really does cause cancer.?  Then it would go only on those
> materials or products which really does cause cancer and reproductive
> harm.  Then we can go round two, suing those manufacturers which caused
> cancer and had only the first warning but not the second one, so the
> hapless victim had no way of knowing, with only the universal Prop 65
> warning, of the risk.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 9:22 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I was looking at washing machines today.  I found out that this machine
> inside California causes cancer and reproductive harm.  But if you take it
> outside California, apparently it is safe out there.
>
>
>
> That?s it, I?m moving.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
> Configuration and Overview
>
>    - *ADA Compliant*
>
> No
>
>    - *CEE Tier*
>
> Not Rated
>
>    - *Prop 65*
>
> [image: Prop 65 warning]*CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY - WARNING: *Cancer and
> Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
> <https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/>.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Fri Mar  1 16:09:37 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 10:09:37 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <005101d4d042$7ab3ce10$701b6a30$@rainier66.com>
References: <005101d4d042$7ab3ce10$701b6a30$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbg34GEKTLrz8G84Wq_+15mkZ8zKnxWuvxD_5v86SnJeA@mail.gmail.com>

Whatever happened to programmed learning, with each student sitting at a
computer and following along at his rate and taking tests at his own rate?
(lots of small ones which point at a problem and refer back to that
subject)  First suggested by B F Skinner, I think.  The teacher wanders
around the room helping students get over a hump in their work.  bill w
(sorry to hear about the Ted talk - still think you have something to offer)

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 9:26 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *John Clark
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 4:10 PM Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>  > > *I'm not interested in equality of outcome at the expense of all
> else. *
>
>
>
> >? it might lead to a more peaceful civilization if the wealth gap were to
> stop growing or at least stop accelerating?...John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
> I recently set up a Ted Talk on what could be titled the Big Rip in
> Education, but after thinking it through, decided to decline the
> opportunity.  I realized the intended audience already knew (better than I
> do) the problems and challenges.  I only talking about embracing the
> problem, but wasn?t offering any solutions.
>
>
>
> John talks a lot about the coming big rip in economic status, a model
> which holds some merit one might suppose.  The span of wealth ownership is
> increasing.  I differ from John in that the big resentment I see isn?t on
> the part of those at the bottom, but rather on the part of those in the
> middle: millionehhhs hate billionehhhs.  Shrugs.  I don?t have anything
> against them.
>
>
>
> My aborted TED talk was about how we are seeing a big rip in education as
> more and better online materials come available.  There is an ever widening
> gulf between the students who use it effectively vs those who do not.
> Before I expand further on that, I will comment that we are seeing the same
> thing in other areas in which I am involved: Boy Scouts, Science Olympiad
> and American Math Competition.  All of these areas are experiencing big
> rips, which I may expound upon at a some future date.  It is astonishing to
> watch it unfold.
>
>
>
> In the education area, I have been watching closely for the past 8 years,
> since my son has been a consumer.  In that time, I have witnessed the local
> public schools really get with it, supplying a computer to every student
> and sufficient bandwidth to drive all of the machines simultaneously.  They
> have adopted an experimental curriculum called PLP, developed by Summit
> Learning.  That might be a step in the right direction, but it is very
> limited and mainstream-ey.  Plenty of the students have discovered better
> online material such as Khan Academy.
>
>
>
> The result of these developments is an ever-accelerating big rip in
> academic achievement.  A yawning gap is forming between those who use the
> online resources effectively and those who do not.  This is not to say
> there are fewer students in between, for there are plenty there too.  But
> the extremes are getting more extreme with time.  We see it happening, but
> I have no particular insights on how to deal with it.  I don?t see any
> particular resentment against those who are super-achievers on the part of
> those who are not.
>
>
>
> At the same time, I recognize that the job of the teacher is getting
> harder with time, at least in some ways.  In other ways, it has gotten much
> easier, particularly in curriculum planning (that is done for them) and the
> grading process.  The software package takes into account the online
> achievements and automatically generates the grades.  (!)  The report card
> isn?t what you and I brought home, but rather several pages of stuff,
> including text, much or most of which is generated by the software.  (!)
> The teacher can add commentary if (s)he wishes, and it uses speech to text,
> making that aspect of teaching easier.
>
>
>
> A new twist I hadn?t seen before was rolled out this year.  Instead of the
> usual parent-teacher conferences, the students now make up a set of
> PowerPoint charts and present these to a parent, in a big room with about a
> dozen other students simultaneously pitching their accomplishments to their
> parents, while the teacher is present in the room but not interacting
> directly with any of the students.  (!)
>
>
>
> In all this, we are seeing an astonishing divergence in accomplishments of
> the top end vs the bottom end students.  The big rip in education is
> already ripping wildly.
>
>
>
> In some ways this makes the job of teaching harder, for while there are
> plenty of students still plodding along the old-fashioned way, with plenty
> of parents insisting on the old educational models, it becomes very
> difficult to even keep up with the best students, while they are still in
> the middle and even lower grades, such as? seventh.  I can show you
> examples of students who already have zoomed past their teachers at least
> in some areas, particularly math and software development.  Cool!  (?If
> your own offspring happens to be way out there on the right end of the bell
> curve and accelerating to the right? (otherwise, not so cool.))
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
-------------- next part --------------
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From spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  1 17:46:07 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 09:46:07 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbg34GEKTLrz8G84Wq_+15mkZ8zKnxWuvxD_5v86SnJeA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <005101d4d042$7ab3ce10$701b6a30$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbg34GEKTLrz8G84Wq_+15mkZ8zKnxWuvxD_5v86SnJeA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <006701d4d056$a6de7a30$f49b6e90$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] big rip in education

 

 

>?Whatever happened to programmed learning, with each student sitting at a computer and following along at his rate and taking tests at his own rate? (lots of small ones which point at a problem and refer back to that subject) 

 

 

It is already in practice.  Your question is a pretty good description of Summit Learning?s PLP.

 

>?First suggested by B F Skinner, I think?

 

Is it not astonishing how long it has taken to put this into practice?  The experiments were many, but this PLP was the first one these local schools have embraced.

 

>?The teacher wanders around the room helping students get over a hump in their work.  bill w 

 

Ja, a guide on the side, rather than a sage on the stage.  That is how they are doing it.  However? there is a significant minority of student who do not or cannot learn effectively that way.  They need interaction with a live teacher realtime.  Their progress quickly grinds to a halt, the teacher deals with them individually when (s)he is available, the plod and wait, while the eagles soar.

 

Result: educationally, the rich get richer.  As the educationally super rich get better and better at using the available (and rapidly expanding) resources, these super rich get crazy rich.  This is the big rip in education that plenty of us are witnessing, but none of us have any particular insights into how to deal with it.  BillW, you are a professor.  Please offer insights sir.

 

 

>?(sorry to hear about the Ted talk - still think you have something to offer)?

 

If I can get some real insight into where the educational big rip leads and how to deal with it, I may still go ahead with the pitch at some point.

 

Here?s a fun take on the whole big rip angle.  These online resources are available to eeeeverybody.  The best ones are free (thanks Sal Khan (of course they cheerfully accept donations to Khan Academy (I have given them a few hundred bucks and offered two videos (but he has given me value I would conservatively estimate in the tens of thousands (at least (and if you do or don?t, go look around in Khan Academy online (it?s free.))))))) 

 

https://www.khanacademy.org/

 

For fun, check out Sal Khan?s book One World Schoolhouse:

 

http://net-workingworlds.weebly.com/uploads/1/5/1/5/15155460/the-one-world-schoolhouse-salman-khan.pdf

 

For even more fun, see if you can find a first edition, before Sal took out some of that fun slightly politically incorrect stuff (which isn?t in the PDF above (no I won?t lend you my hard copy (they have gotten too hard to find (and I have already given away two first editions to local principals.))))

 

We are so accustomed to the rich (money rich) having access to the best schools, the best teachers, the best opportunities in general.  Now I would argue that the best educational opportunities are online, available to anyone who wants to go in and gobble it up like a ravenous PacMan.  Plenty of the PLP superstars come from the lower socio-economic ranks.  Our local library offers free WiFi, and a ChromeBook can be had for a few bucks used over at the Salvation Army.  The very poor don?t really get rich (yet) but they can get really smart.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 9:26 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

 

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

 

On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 4:10 PM Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com <mailto:interzone at gmail.com> > wrote:

 

 > > I'm not interested in equality of outcome at the expense of all else. 

 

>? it might lead to a more peaceful civilization if the wealth gap were to stop growing or at least stop accelerating?...John K Clark

 

 

I recently set up a Ted Talk on what could be titled the Big Rip in Education, but after thinking it through, decided to decline the opportunity.  I realized the intended audience already knew (better than I do) the problems and challenges.  I only talking about embracing the problem, but wasn?t offering any solutions.

 

John talks a lot about the coming big rip in economic status, a model which holds some merit one might suppose.  The span of wealth ownership is increasing.  I differ from John in that the big resentment I see isn?t on the part of those at the bottom, but rather on the part of those in the middle: millionehhhs hate billionehhhs.  Shrugs.  I don?t have anything against them.

 

My aborted TED talk was about how we are seeing a big rip in education as more and better online materials come available.  There is an ever widening gulf between the students who use it effectively vs those who do not.  Before I expand further on that, I will comment that we are seeing the same thing in other areas in which I am involved: Boy Scouts, Science Olympiad and American Math Competition.  All of these areas are experiencing big rips, which I may expound upon at a some future date.  It is astonishing to watch it unfold.

 

In the education area, I have been watching closely for the past 8 years, since my son has been a consumer.  In that time, I have witnessed the local public schools really get with it, supplying a computer to every student and sufficient bandwidth to drive all of the machines simultaneously.  They have adopted an experimental curriculum called PLP, developed by Summit Learning.  That might be a step in the right direction, but it is very limited and mainstream-ey.  Plenty of the students have discovered better online material such as Khan Academy.

 

The result of these developments is an ever-accelerating big rip in academic achievement.  A yawning gap is forming between those who use the online resources effectively and those who do not.  This is not to say there are fewer students in between, for there are plenty there too.  But the extremes are getting more extreme with time.  We see it happening, but I have no particular insights on how to deal with it.  I don?t see any particular resentment against those who are super-achievers on the part of those who are not.

 

At the same time, I recognize that the job of the teacher is getting harder with time, at least in some ways.  In other ways, it has gotten much easier, particularly in curriculum planning (that is done for them) and the grading process.  The software package takes into account the online achievements and automatically generates the grades.  (!)  The report card isn?t what you and I brought home, but rather several pages of stuff, including text, much or most of which is generated by the software.  (!)  The teacher can add commentary if (s)he wishes, and it uses speech to text, making that aspect of teaching easier.  

 

A new twist I hadn?t seen before was rolled out this year.  Instead of the usual parent-teacher conferences, the students now make up a set of PowerPoint charts and present these to a parent, in a big room with about a dozen other students simultaneously pitching their accomplishments to their parents, while the teacher is present in the room but not interacting directly with any of the students.  (!)

 

In all this, we are seeing an astonishing divergence in accomplishments of the top end vs the bottom end students.  The big rip in education is already ripping wildly.

 

In some ways this makes the job of teaching harder, for while there are plenty of students still plodding along the old-fashioned way, with plenty of parents insisting on the old educational models, it becomes very difficult to even keep up with the best students, while they are still in the middle and even lower grades, such as? seventh.  I can show you examples of students who already have zoomed past their teachers at least in some areas, particularly math and software development.  Cool!  (?If your own offspring happens to be way out there on the right end of the bell curve and accelerating to the right? (otherwise, not so cool.))

 

spike

 

 

 

   

 

 

_______________________________________________
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 18:03:25 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 13:03:25 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>

Americans like to think they live in a meritocracy but they don't, the
truth is if you're born poor in the USA and are talented you're less likely
to get rich than if you were born in other advanced countries, particularly
one of the Scandinavian socialist countries. Take a look at this graph,
it's informally called "The Great Gatsby Curve" by economists and is a plot
of the Gini coefficient for several industrialized countries (a measure of
economic inequality) against economic mobility (the likelihood if you're
born in one economic class you'll die in the same economic class):

The Great Gatsby Curve
<https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.bwbx.io%2Fimages%2Fusers%2FiqjWHBFdfxIU%2Fi39D39AoA74w%2Fv1%2F1000x-1.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2013-12-12%2Fthe-gatsby-curve-how-inequality-became-a-household-word&docid=sLvBewmozWO0CM&tbnid=7SCQhdxQMkmSvM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwj44KDfgeHgAhUCD60KHUFzAUgQMwhLKAswCw..i&w=1000&h=825&bih=863&biw=1707&q=Great%20Gatsby%20Curve%3A&ved=0ahUKEwj44KDfgeHgAhUCD60KHUFzAUgQMwhLKAswCw&iact=mrc&uact=8>

As you can see the USA is in the extreme upper right of the plot and that
is exactly where you don't want to be; enormous economic inequality and
little economic mobility, the same conditions that occurred just before the
French Revolution. The only reason there hasn't already been blood in the
streets is probably because the poor are unrealistically optimistic about
getting rich. Here is another interesting graph, it plots several countries
actual economic mobility against the perceived economic mobility with the
diagonal line representing a accurate assessment of posabilities. As you
can see Americans are far too optimistic while most other countries are
somewhat too pessimistic, only the Italians get it about right and see
things as they actually are:

Actual Mobility Versus Perceived Mobility
<https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0bIjqqXgAApZ3O.png>

So we're sitting on a time bomb and the only thing stopping it from going
off is a misperception by the poor and lower middle class, but it's only a
matter of time before they wise up and when they do I suggest you invest in
guillotine futures.

 John K Clark
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From sparge at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 18:14:07 2019
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 13:14:07 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Economics
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dS9rtFTspP0wgg7F6pGOiNfPFMzFZew4NEDYyevC1rgQ@mail.gmail.com>

>From yesterday's Bill Bonner's Diary, a free, daily email newsletter.
Touches on income inequality.

Our Third Bold Prediction

By Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners

GUALFIN, ARGENTINA

We made two bold predictions, about a year ago.

Today, we make another one.

The Flood

Our first prediction was that the Fed would never normalize interest-rate
policies, allowing the free market to set short-term rates, rather than the
Fed itself.

Our second was that Donald J. Trump would never follow through on his
threat of a Full Retard trade war with China.

The two are related in an important way. Fed policies, and the fake money
system behind them ? not tariffs ? caused the trade deficit with China.
Prior to the introduction of fake money, not connected to gold, in 1971,
the U.S. ran a trade surplus, the biggest in the world.

Now it runs the world?s biggest deficit. Why the difference? Because now it
can simply print the money to pay its foreign creditors.

Before 1971, trade imbalances never got too far out of whack. They were
reconciled by shifting gold from the deficit country to the surplus
country. Gold is limited, so it had the effect of lowering the money supply
in the deficit country, forcing up interest rates, and reducing spending on
imports.

That is, the feds ? and their money system ? created the world that we live
in? with $250 trillion of debt? and some of the lowest interest rates since
The Flood.

Had America stuck with real, gold-backed money? and/or had the Fed not
supported Wall Street with ultra-low interest rates and $4 trillion of new
money? the situation would be much different.

There would be no trade deficit with China. There would be no $250 trillion
in debt. An F-150 would probably cost less than it did in 1971, not more.
The working class would have nothing to grumble about? And Donald Trump
would not be president.

The Fed would not be ?normalizing,? because it never would have
un-normalized. The rich would not be so rich. The Dow would not be over
25,000. The government would not have $22 trillion of debt itself. And we
wouldn?t be up at 6 a.m. writing this Diary.

All of these things, of course, are going away. But not soon. And not
without even more outrageous and lunatic efforts to keep the jig up.

Which is where our third prediction comes in.

Common Sense Substitute

On Tuesday, Jerome Powell pronounced judgment on MMT (Modern Monetary
Theory).

Recall that MMT has become very popular after AOC (Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez) proposed it as a substitute for common sense.

While logically coherent, the theory suggests that governments can ? and
perhaps should ? print as much money as they want, until something bad
happens. Since a government can print the money to pay its debts, it never
has to go broke. Therefore, the idea goes, debt doesn?t matter.

Powell, in Tuesday?s testimony, said the idea was ?just wrong.?

We predict he ? or his successor ? will change his mind.

People come to think what they need to think when they need to think it.
Right now, Mr. Powell is doing just fine.

With such low rates, unemployment supposedly at its lowest level since the
1950s, and the stock market near its all-time high, he can afford to tell
the truth? at least about MMT.

But the whole shebang rests on lies. Fake money. Fake interest rates. Fake
?us vs. them? battles. Tax cuts without spending cuts. Social programs that
we can?t afford. Military adventures that make us less safe.

In Warren Buffett?s latest letter to shareholders, for example, he
described the stock market?s run-up over the last 77 years as the result of
?American mettle.? That was a lie too.

American entrepreneurial mettle is measured in GDP figures, not the S&P
500. And GDP growth has been running at only 2%-3% for decades, while
Buffett?s portfolio was compounding about six times that rate.

How come? It was a meddle, not mettle. The aforementioned meddling by the
feds twisted the world?s finances into a grotesque shape, making the rich
richer than ever? and making the common man howl.

And it is that shape that the insiders are desperate to preserve. Which is
why neither the trade deficits, nor the policies that brought them about,
are going away anytime soon.

Know why? Simple. It?s ?us versus them.? There are those who go through
life honestly ? voluntarily giving and taking as best they can? and there
are those who cheat and steal, or use the muscle of the government to get
something for nothing.

That?s the ?us vs. them? fight that really matters.

Greenspan Put

The elite began to rely on the Fed to boost its asset prices in 1987, when
Alan Greenspan first rushed to counter a correction (the Crash of 1987)
with a sharp cut in interest rates.

The ?Greenspan put? assured investors that the stock market had been tamed.
Since then, they?ve counted on the Fed to keep moving wealth from Main
Street to Wall Street. (The value of stocks went up, while the working
man?s time did not.)

But it?s getting harder and harder to do. Stocks are already at the top of
their range. And the debt burden is so heavy, it is cracking the pavement
on Main Street. Consumers and businesses cannot borrow more. That leaves
only the federal government, whose credit is, according to MMT theorists,
almost unlimited.

But the federal government is already adding $100 billion a month to its
debt ? and we?re still in a boom. And it won?t be long before the boom
ends, interest rates rise, tax receipts fall? and the feds can?t pay the
interest on their existing debt, let alone add more.

What are the PhDs? cronies? and hustlers to do? Admit defeat? Let asset
prices collapse? dragging down their wealth and reputations? Let the stock
market correct? Let the economy go into recession? or even depression? as
it cleans out the mistakes built up by 30 years of phony, EZ money policies?

Imagine Mr. Powell explaining his new ?hands off? policy to the hinds in
Congress:

?You know,? begins Mr. Powell, ?we can?t really tell you what interest
rates should be. Or what stocks should sell for. And all that fake money?
and that 2% inflation target? well? it was all nonsense, wasn?t it??

Nope. We can?t imagine it either.

Instead, we see Mr. Powell changing his mind about MMT. Maybe the
government should borrow and spend more, he begins to think. And then,
under a dense smokescreen of theoretical MMT claptrap, the Fed will follow
Japan?s central bank, buying U.S. bonds by the trillions.

Regards,
?
Bill
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From spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  1 18:29:23 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 10:29:23 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark



 

 

>?The only reason there hasn't already been blood in the streets is probably because the poor are unrealistically optimistic about getting rich? John K Clark

 

 


?Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.?
? Ronald Wright,  <https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/321797> A Short History of Progress

 

 

Damn that optimism!  Sal Khan and his ilk are contributing to it.  The poor have the opportunity to get way ahead of their richer but less motivated peers academically, so the path upward is clearly visible.

 

Another take on it is this.  In America, it doesn?t hurt all that much to be poor.  There are plenty of ways poor people can still have adequate food, shelter and clothing.  It isn?t top shelf, but it is generally available to the non-stoned poor.  Then they have free time to play on the internet (free bandwidth is available if you can tolerate that most porno is blocked) or play video games on the Nintendo.

 

Another take on it is this.  We have local billionehhhs, plenty of them in Palo Alto, Cupertino, Los Altos Hills, Saratoga, a few up the hill from here.  But the super rich billionehhhs can?t really have that different a life from the ordinary Joe Millionehhhs.  Beyond a certain point, their lifestyles aren?t all that different.  Another order of magnitude doesn?t make that much difference.

 

John where you and I diverge wildly is that I just don?t see the resentment of the super rich.  I certainly don?t feel it.  I can see the homes of the super rich from down here: their places and big spawling mansions up on the hill up there.  OK no worries, I don?t resent that a bit.  More power to them.  I look out my window and see a big place built by a rapper, MC Hammer.  He has (or had) a pile of money, well OK, fine with me.  He built that, now the value of that property brings in a pile of real estate tax into this community.  I don?t feel a bit of envy for that place up there or any of the others: they are nice houses, but it would be too inconvenient to get down off that hill every time you would go anywhere.  Rap on, Mr. Hammer!

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 19:53:06 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 14:53:06 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 1:34 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:



>
> *?Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not
> as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed
> millionaires.?? Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress
> <https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/321797>*
>
Ideally one should not be optimistic or pessimistic about the opportunities
your society provides and should not over inflate or under inflate your
abilities but see things as they actually are.

*> Another take on it is this.  In America, it doesn?t hurt all that much
> to be poor.  There are plenty of ways poor people can still have adequate
> food, shelter and clothing.  It isn?t top shelf, but it is generally
> available to the non-stoned poor.*


The safety net in the USA sucks compared with other industrialized nations,
from 20001 to 2014 the richest have gained about 5 years in life expectancy
while the poor have gained nothing and now live over a dozen years less
than the rich:

Life Expectancy Versus Wealth
<https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-apps%2Fimrs.php%3Fsrc%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fimg.washingtonpost.com%2Fblogs%2Fwonkblog%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F09%2F2300-19-800x583.jpg%26w%3D1484&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fnews%2Fwonk%2Fwp%2F2015%2F09%2F18%2Fthe-government-is-spending-more-to-help-rich-seniors-than-poor-ones%2F&docid=OjWLiJZD4hbE6M&tbnid=KHg3oAG_g3KcFM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjh3K_NzOHgAhUSWqwKHVEwAcYQMwhIKAgwCA..i&w=1484&h=1081&bih=863&biw=1707&q=wealth%20USA%20%22life%20expectancy%22&ved=0ahUKEwjh3K_NzOHgAhUSWqwKHVEwAcYQMwhIKAgwCA&iact=mrc&uact=8>


> > *the super rich billionehhhs can?t really have that different a life
> from the ordinary Joe Millionehhhs. Beyond a certain point, their
> lifestyles aren?t all that different.  Another order of magnitude doesn?t
> make that much difference.*


WORLD?S 15 MOST EXPENSIVE LUXURY YACHTS
<http://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/worlds-top-10-most-expensive-luxury-yachts/>

I was particularly interested in the yacht "History Supreme", it's only 100
feet long, and that'ssmall compared with another super luxury yacht the 536
foot long 1.5 billion dollar "Eclipse",  but the "History Supreme" cost 3
times as much, 4.5 billion dollars, because it has 220,462 pounds of Gold
and Platinum decorating it and one wall of the master bedroom consists of a
giant meteorite and it has a 45 million dollar empty wine bottle in the bar
and a statue made of Tyrannosaurus Rex bones in the dining room.

I don't want to be within a hundred miles of that obscenity when the
revolution hits, I don't want the pitchfork wielding mob to think I had
anything to do with it.

John K Clark
>
>
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 20:32:37 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 14:32:37 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <006701d4d056$a6de7a30$f49b6e90$@rainier66.com>
References: <005101d4d042$7ab3ce10$701b6a30$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbg34GEKTLrz8G84Wq_+15mkZ8zKnxWuvxD_5v86SnJeA@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d056$a6de7a30$f49b6e90$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEattpMg3mfj20JMOYOyAx-E_fVp02TnXJ8bPbh0LNTFtg@mail.gmail.com>

Speaking personally, the main problem I see with Khan and others:  where
are the teachers going to get their husbands and wives?!  I married a
student and so did several of my colleagues.  College level, of course,
though I read of many hits on high school level students.  One I remember:
a guy who was about 28 fell for a student in his high school class.  When I
saw him he was almost totally bald - maybe one out of a thousand hairs
growing - stress. Parents opposed; school officials opposed.  They did wind
up getting married and it lasted a few years - sad.

So - the rich get richer.  But do they  just get that way faster, or do
they go further than with ordinary teaching?  It gets complicated:  how to
you compare a rich kid in an advanced class versus a poor kid in an
ordinary class?  It would not be ethical, I think, to put some rich kids in
advanced section and some in ordinary sections.  This is the type of
experiment where you might wind up stopping the exp. because the better
method should be offered to everyone.

Different kinds of rich:  those who have strong capacity but who are lazy,
and those who have it but are go-getters.  Problem:  what to offer to the
lazy ones to get them going?  I would not be opposed to parents paying
money to get their kid involved.  What schools could do is problematic.
All they can offer is grades, gold stars, and ????

In fact it's hard enough just to compare two teachers even with random
assignment to classes.  And then you throw in people like you, who are far
advanced in math and helping your son.  Even you don't know how to measure
just how much your help is advancing Joshua, and some other parents might
be in the same situation.

I am assuming that you are familiar with successive approximations.  It
takes an expert to map out the procedure.  Just how much do you make the
subject stretch to make the next response;  that is, how much advancement
do you build into the software so that you are not going too fast or too
slow.  Feedback from the Ss will tell you some of that.  But some kids will
get lost and lie about it.

I have to believe that there is a lot of research going on here and I am
not familiar with it.  I have read no educational psych books on these
subjects, so I am just making this up as I go along.

If you decide to get into this, look for meta-analysis - articles that
review many studies at once - or find a good book which will tell you what
it all means in addition to telling you all the results.  I have no
recommendations as to how to find good, scientific books on education.
Probably swamped by the lousy ones.

I can find little of what we are discussing that relates to what I did in
my classroom, which was not traditional, but which was also not what is
happening now.  bill w

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 11:51 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] big rip in education
>
>
>
>
>
> >?Whatever happened to programmed learning, with each student sitting at
> a computer and following along at his rate and taking tests at his own
> rate? (lots of small ones which point at a problem and refer back to that
> subject)
>
>
>
>
>
> It is already in practice.  Your question is a pretty good description of
> Summit Learning?s PLP.
>
>
>
> >?First suggested by B F Skinner, I think?
>
>
>
> Is it not astonishing how long it has taken to put this into practice?
> The experiments were many, but this PLP was the first one these local
> schools have embraced.
>
>
>
> >?The teacher wanders around the room helping students get over a hump in
> their work.  bill w
>
>
>
> Ja, a guide on the side, rather than a sage on the stage.  That is how
> they are doing it.  However? there is a significant minority of student who
> do not or cannot learn effectively that way.  They need interaction with a
> live teacher realtime.  Their progress quickly grinds to a halt, the
> teacher deals with them individually when (s)he is available, the plod and
> wait, while the eagles soar.
>
>
>
> Result: educationally, the rich get richer.  As the educationally super
> rich get better and better at using the available (and rapidly expanding)
> resources, these super rich get crazy rich.  This is the big rip in
> education that plenty of us are witnessing, but none of us have any
> particular insights into how to deal with it.  BillW, you are a professor.
> Please offer insights sir.
>
>
>
>
>
> >?(sorry to hear about the Ted talk - still think you have something to
> offer)?
>
>
>
> If I can get some real insight into where the educational big rip leads
> and how to deal with it, I may still go ahead with the pitch at some point.
>
>
>
> Here?s a fun take on the whole big rip angle.  These online resources are
> available to eeeeverybody.  The best ones are free (thanks Sal Khan (of
> course they cheerfully accept donations to Khan Academy (I have given them
> a few hundred bucks and offered two videos (but he has given me value I
> would conservatively estimate in the tens of thousands (at least (and if
> you do or don?t, go look around in Khan Academy online (it?s free.)))))))
>
>
>
> https://www.khanacademy.org/
>
>
>
> For fun, check out Sal Khan?s book One World Schoolhouse:
>
>
>
>
> http://net-workingworlds.weebly.com/uploads/1/5/1/5/15155460/the-one-world-schoolhouse-salman-khan.pdf
>
>
>
> For even more fun, see if you can find a first edition, before Sal took
> out some of that fun slightly politically incorrect stuff (which isn?t in
> the PDF above (no I won?t lend you my hard copy (they have gotten too hard
> to find (and I have already given away two first editions to local
> principals.))))
>
>
>
> We are so accustomed to the rich (money rich) having access to the best
> schools, the best teachers, the best opportunities in general.  Now I would
> argue that the best educational opportunities are online, available to
> anyone who wants to go in and gobble it up like a ravenous PacMan.  Plenty
> of the PLP superstars come from the lower socio-economic ranks.  Our local
> library offers free WiFi, and a ChromeBook can be had for a few bucks used
> over at the Salvation Army.  The very poor don?t really get rich (yet) but
> they can get really smart.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
> On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 9:26 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *John Clark
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 4:10 PM Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>  > > *I'm not interested in equality of outcome at the expense of all
> else. *
>
>
>
> >? it might lead to a more peaceful civilization if the wealth gap were to
> stop growing or at least stop accelerating?...John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
> I recently set up a Ted Talk on what could be titled the Big Rip in
> Education, but after thinking it through, decided to decline the
> opportunity.  I realized the intended audience already knew (better than I
> do) the problems and challenges.  I only talking about embracing the
> problem, but wasn?t offering any solutions.
>
>
>
> John talks a lot about the coming big rip in economic status, a model
> which holds some merit one might suppose.  The span of wealth ownership is
> increasing.  I differ from John in that the big resentment I see isn?t on
> the part of those at the bottom, but rather on the part of those in the
> middle: millionehhhs hate billionehhhs.  Shrugs.  I don?t have anything
> against them.
>
>
>
> My aborted TED talk was about how we are seeing a big rip in education as
> more and better online materials come available.  There is an ever widening
> gulf between the students who use it effectively vs those who do not.
> Before I expand further on that, I will comment that we are seeing the same
> thing in other areas in which I am involved: Boy Scouts, Science Olympiad
> and American Math Competition.  All of these areas are experiencing big
> rips, which I may expound upon at a some future date.  It is astonishing to
> watch it unfold.
>
>
>
> In the education area, I have been watching closely for the past 8 years,
> since my son has been a consumer.  In that time, I have witnessed the local
> public schools really get with it, supplying a computer to every student
> and sufficient bandwidth to drive all of the machines simultaneously.  They
> have adopted an experimental curriculum called PLP, developed by Summit
> Learning.  That might be a step in the right direction, but it is very
> limited and mainstream-ey.  Plenty of the students have discovered better
> online material such as Khan Academy.
>
>
>
> The result of these developments is an ever-accelerating big rip in
> academic achievement.  A yawning gap is forming between those who use the
> online resources effectively and those who do not.  This is not to say
> there are fewer students in between, for there are plenty there too.  But
> the extremes are getting more extreme with time.  We see it happening, but
> I have no particular insights on how to deal with it.  I don?t see any
> particular resentment against those who are super-achievers on the part of
> those who are not.
>
>
>
> At the same time, I recognize that the job of the teacher is getting
> harder with time, at least in some ways.  In other ways, it has gotten much
> easier, particularly in curriculum planning (that is done for them) and the
> grading process.  The software package takes into account the online
> achievements and automatically generates the grades.  (!)  The report card
> isn?t what you and I brought home, but rather several pages of stuff,
> including text, much or most of which is generated by the software.  (!)
> The teacher can add commentary if (s)he wishes, and it uses speech to text,
> making that aspect of teaching easier.
>
>
>
> A new twist I hadn?t seen before was rolled out this year.  Instead of the
> usual parent-teacher conferences, the students now make up a set of
> PowerPoint charts and present these to a parent, in a big room with about a
> dozen other students simultaneously pitching their accomplishments to their
> parents, while the teacher is present in the room but not interacting
> directly with any of the students.  (!)
>
>
>
> In all this, we are seeing an astonishing divergence in accomplishments of
> the top end vs the bottom end students.  The big rip in education is
> already ripping wildly.
>
>
>
> In some ways this makes the job of teaching harder, for while there are
> plenty of students still plodding along the old-fashioned way, with plenty
> of parents insisting on the old educational models, it becomes very
> difficult to even keep up with the best students, while they are still in
> the middle and even lower grades, such as? seventh.  I can show you
> examples of students who already have zoomed past their teachers at least
> in some areas, particularly math and software development.  Cool!  (?If
> your own offspring happens to be way out there on the right end of the bell
> curve and accelerating to the right? (otherwise, not so cool.))
>
>
>
> 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 foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 20:39:22 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 14:39:22 -0600
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbGr=UXaZhpeQ_M1MF8V1BQzaR4PjhOa62Jj6HbcGYsqw@mail.gmail.com>

I don't resent the rich either, but I do wonder where their money is.  Is
it invested and helping the economy, or just sitting collecting interest?
I assume the former, so the rich are not just enjoying the economy, they
are stimulating it, if I am correct.

bill w

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 12:33 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *John Clark
>
>
>
>
>
> *>?*The only reason there hasn't already been blood in the streets is
> probably because the poor are unrealistically optimistic about getting
> rich? John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ?Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not
> as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.?
> ? *Ronald Wright, **A Short History of Progress*
> <https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/321797>
>
>
>
>
>
> Damn that optimism!  Sal Khan and his ilk are contributing to it.  The
> poor have the opportunity to get way ahead of their richer but less
> motivated peers academically, so the path upward is clearly visible.
>
>
>
> Another take on it is this.  In America, it doesn?t hurt all that much to
> be poor.  There are plenty of ways poor people can still have adequate
> food, shelter and clothing.  It isn?t top shelf, but it is generally
> available to the non-stoned poor.  Then they have free time to play on the
> internet (free bandwidth is available if you can tolerate that most porno
> is blocked) or play video games on the Nintendo.
>
>
>
> Another take on it is this.  We have local billionehhhs, plenty of them in
> Palo Alto, Cupertino, Los Altos Hills, Saratoga, a few up the hill from
> here.  But the super rich billionehhhs can?t really have that different a
> life from the ordinary Joe Millionehhhs.  Beyond a certain point, their
> lifestyles aren?t all that different.  Another order of magnitude doesn?t
> make that much difference.
>
>
>
> John where you and I diverge wildly is that I just don?t see the
> resentment of the super rich.  I certainly don?t feel it.  I can see the
> homes of the super rich from down here: their places and big spawling
> mansions up on the hill up there.  OK no worries, I don?t resent that a
> bit.  More power to them.  I look out my window and see a big place built
> by a rapper, MC Hammer.  He has (or had) a pile of money, well OK, fine
> with me.  He built that, now the value of that property brings in a pile of
> real estate tax into this community.  I don?t feel a bit of envy for that
> place up there or any of the others: they are nice houses, but it would be
> too inconvenient to get down off that hill every time you would go
> anywhere.  Rap on, Mr. Hammer!
>
>
>
> 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 Mar  1 21:09:11 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 15:09:11 -0600
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEY9Bf_tLGXZ0bg0x2Xh1gcj-JhYR+LFzv7GQy8NaWgDoA@mail.gmail.com>

I don't want to be within a hundred miles of that obscenity when the
revolution hits, I don't want the pitchfork wielding mob to think I had
anything to do with it.

John K Clark
Did the French Revolution accomplish its goals?  Change the economy for the
better?  Do better for the poor?  bill w


On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 3:00 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 1:34 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>
>> *?Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves
>> not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed
>> millionaires.?? Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress
>> <https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/321797>*
>>
> Ideally one should not be optimistic or pessimistic about the
> opportunities your society provides and should not over inflate or under
> inflate your abilities but see things as they actually are.
>
> *> Another take on it is this.  In America, it doesn?t hurt all that much
>> to be poor.  There are plenty of ways poor people can still have adequate
>> food, shelter and clothing.  It isn?t top shelf, but it is generally
>> available to the non-stoned poor.*
>
>
> The safety net in the USA sucks compared with other industrialized
> nations, from 20001 to 2014 the richest have gained about 5 years in life
> expectancy while the poor have gained nothing and now live over a dozen
> years less than the rich:
>
> Life Expectancy Versus Wealth
> <https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-apps%2Fimrs.php%3Fsrc%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fimg.washingtonpost.com%2Fblogs%2Fwonkblog%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F09%2F2300-19-800x583.jpg%26w%3D1484&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fnews%2Fwonk%2Fwp%2F2015%2F09%2F18%2Fthe-government-is-spending-more-to-help-rich-seniors-than-poor-ones%2F&docid=OjWLiJZD4hbE6M&tbnid=KHg3oAG_g3KcFM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjh3K_NzOHgAhUSWqwKHVEwAcYQMwhIKAgwCA..i&w=1484&h=1081&bih=863&biw=1707&q=wealth%20USA%20%22life%20expectancy%22&ved=0ahUKEwjh3K_NzOHgAhUSWqwKHVEwAcYQMwhIKAgwCA&iact=mrc&uact=8>
>
>
>> > *the super rich billionehhhs can?t really have that different a life
>> from the ordinary Joe Millionehhhs. Beyond a certain point, their
>> lifestyles aren?t all that different.  Another order of magnitude doesn?t
>> make that much difference.*
>
>
> WORLD?S 15 MOST EXPENSIVE LUXURY YACHTS
> <http://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/worlds-top-10-most-expensive-luxury-yachts/>
>
> I was particularly interested in the yacht "History Supreme", it's only
> 100 feet long, and that'ssmall compared with another super luxury yacht the
> 536 foot long 1.5 billion dollar "Eclipse",  but the "History Supreme" cost
> 3 times as much, 4.5 billion dollars, because it has 220,462 pounds of Gold
> and Platinum decorating it and one wall of the master bedroom consists of a
> giant meteorite and it has a 45 million dollar empty wine bottle in the bar
> and a statue made of Tyrannosaurus Rex bones in the dining room.
>
> I don't want to be within a hundred miles of that obscenity when the
> revolution hits, I don't want the pitchfork wielding mob to think I had
> anything to do with it.
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  1 22:29:12 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 14:29:12 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005301d4d07e$32c8e3b0$985aab10$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark



 

WORLD?S 15 MOST EXPENSIVE LUXURY YACHTS  <http://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/worlds-top-10-most-expensive-luxury-yachts/> 

 

>?I was particularly interested in the yacht "History Supreme", it's only 100 feet long, and that'ssmall compared with another super luxury yacht the 536 foot long 1.5 billion dollar "Eclipse"?

 

John, where did that .5 billion dollars go?  Away?  Where away?  

 

>?  but the "History Supreme" cost 3 times as much, 4.5 billion dollars?

 

Did that 4.5 billion dollars go away?  Where is it now?

 

>? because it has 220,462 pounds of Gold and Platinum decorating it?

 

OK so it is a floating Fort Knox.  I still don?t see the problem, even if it sinks.  We can haul it back up for that kinda money.  In fact that would help keep it safe.  I don?t see why it is any more obscene in a yacht than in a fort in Kentucky.

 

>? and a statue made of Tyrannosaurus Rex bones in the dining room?

 

Hey cool I wonder if I can make arrangements to have my bones made into a statue?

 

>?I don't want to be within a hundred miles of that obscenity when the revolution hits, I don't want the pitchfork wielding mob to think I had anything to do with it.   John K Clark


John I just got back from Costco and realized there is work to be done before the pitchfork revolution can take place.  For starters, the guns need to be confiscated from the citizenry, because those have longer range than pitchforks.  But there is more, and it gets back to Costco.

 

A number of years ago I saw an interview with a guy who was a companion of Fidel Castro before the war.  He wasn?t at all what you would picture: this guy was happy, funny, jolly, a pleasant guy.  He related a story about how Castro was a fiery young man, struggling to get his fellow revolutionaries off their asses.  They said Fidellll!  Why you want revolutiON?  We have de hogs, we have de women, we have de marijuana.  We have everything we need up here!

 

Castro sent away the women, no revolutiON!  He cut off de supply of hogs, no revolutiON!  Then he cut off de marijuana.  Then de men would FIGHT!

 

Today at Costco, I looked at TVs for the first time in a coupla years.  I saw what a marvelous TV one can get for one week of minimum wage.  These are 50 inch diagonal, 4k resolution, they get 400 bucks for them.  With that and free internet, the proletariat will not revolt.  It doesn?t matter how much MC Hammer owns, billions, trillions, tack on whatever prefix you want to illions, doesn?t matter one bit how long his yacht or how tall his house.  If the proletariat are that comfortable, they will not revolt.  The job of the revolutionary leader is to make the masses uncomfortable.  

 

Cut off their internet = riots in the streets.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  1 22:39:56 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 14:39:56 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbGr=UXaZhpeQ_M1MF8V1BQzaR4PjhOa62Jj6HbcGYsqw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbGr=UXaZhpeQ_M1MF8V1BQzaR4PjhOa62Jj6HbcGYsqw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <007d01d4d07f$b2385fd0$16a91f70$@rainier66.com>

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Friday, March 1, 2019 12:39 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve

 

I don't resent the rich either, but I do wonder where their money is.  Is it invested and helping the economy, or just sitting collecting interest?  I assume the former, so the rich are not just enjoying the economy, they are stimulating it, if I am correct.

 

bill w 

 

 

If it is just sitting collecting interest, it is still invested, just not by you.  When you put money in the bank, they invest it and give you part of the profit.  Most people who have a ton of money invest it in something.  The really super rich tend to invest in things only they can invest in (less competition that way) such as new therapies and drugs.

 

Your banked money has to be invested in less risky stuff, like local real estate, so the payoff isn?t as big.

 

spike

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 22:41:11 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 17:41:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEY9Bf_tLGXZ0bg0x2Xh1gcj-JhYR+LFzv7GQy8NaWgDoA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEY9Bf_tLGXZ0bg0x2Xh1gcj-JhYR+LFzv7GQy8NaWgDoA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3F_1By2CrXexOHB2Xo2gc27CgXOwAv-HOcSyz6uS+vYg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 5:01 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Did the French Revolution accomplish its goals?  Change the economy for
> the better?  Do better for the poor?  bill w
>

I'm not saying it would be a good idea, revolutions seldom make people
happier especially not the poor. But the French Revolution did accomplish
one (and only one as far as I can tell) of its goals, it did seperate the
heads from a great many rich people's shoulders. I am saying that one way
or another that wealth gap will stop accelerating and super ultra crazy
rich people are fools if they're not worried about it and trying to find a
way to make that transition less apocalyptic.

 John K Clark



>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 22:55:35 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 16:55:35 -0600
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <005301d4d07e$32c8e3b0$985aab10$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
 <005301d4d07e$32c8e3b0$985aab10$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaztUg3ajnsh4zt3ViSJFwLhSZFUA+zXwej_i5Y8aSAuA@mail.gmail.com>

Cut off their internet = riots in the streets.

spike


So television/internet has taken the place of religion:  opiate of the
masses. I read where Russia is thinking about creating their own internet,
for the purpose, I assume, of shutting out any other one - mass
censorship.  Will they revolt?  China censors, but the Chinese people have
seen huge increases in quality of life and the Russians have not.


bill w

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 4:34 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *John Clark
>
>
>
> WORLD?S 15 MOST EXPENSIVE LUXURY YACHTS
> <http://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/worlds-top-10-most-expensive-luxury-yachts/>
>
>
>
> >?I was particularly interested in the yacht "History Supreme", it's only
> 100 feet long, and that'ssmall compared with another super luxury yacht the
> 536 foot long 1.5 billion dollar "Eclipse"?
>
>
>
> John, where did that .5 billion dollars go?  Away?  Where away?
>
>
>
> >?  but the "History Supreme" cost 3 times as much, 4.5 billion dollars?
>
>
>
> Did that 4.5 billion dollars go away?  Where is it now?
>
>
>
> >? because it has 220,462 pounds of Gold and Platinum decorating it?
>
>
>
> OK so it is a floating Fort Knox.  I still don?t see the problem, even if
> it sinks.  We can haul it back up for that kinda money.  In fact that would
> help keep it safe.  I don?t see why it is any more obscene in a yacht than
> in a fort in Kentucky.
>
>
>
> >? and a statue made of Tyrannosaurus Rex bones in the dining room?
>
>
>
> Hey cool I wonder if I can make arrangements to have my bones made into a
> statue?
>
>
>
> >?I don't want to be within a hundred miles of that obscenity when the
> revolution hits, I don't want the pitchfork wielding mob to think I had
> anything to do with it.   John K Clark
>
>
> John I just got back from Costco and realized there is work to be done
> before the pitchfork revolution can take place.  For starters, the guns
> need to be confiscated from the citizenry, because those have longer range
> than pitchforks.  But there is more, and it gets back to Costco.
>
>
>
> A number of years ago I saw an interview with a guy who was a companion of
> Fidel Castro before the war.  He wasn?t at all what you would picture: this
> guy was happy, funny, jolly, a pleasant guy.  He related a story about how
> Castro was a fiery young man, struggling to get his fellow revolutionaries
> off their asses.  They said Fidellll!  Why you want revolutiON?  We have de
> hogs, we have de women, we have de marijuana.  We have everything we need
> up here!
>
>
>
> Castro sent away the women, no revolutiON!  He cut off de supply of hogs,
> no revolutiON!  Then he cut off de marijuana.  Then de men would FIGHT!
>
>
>
> Today at Costco, I looked at TVs for the first time in a coupla years.  I
> saw what a marvelous TV one can get for one week of minimum wage.  These
> are 50 inch diagonal, 4k resolution, they get 400 bucks for them.  With
> that and free internet, the proletariat will not revolt.  It doesn?t matter
> how much MC Hammer owns, billions, trillions, tack on whatever prefix you
> want to illions, doesn?t matter one bit how long his yacht or how tall his
> house.  If the proletariat are that comfortable, they will not revolt.  The
> job of the revolutionary leader is to make the masses uncomfortable.
>
>
>
> Cut off their internet = riots in the streets.
>
>
>
> 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 Mar  1 23:01:57 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 17:01:57 -0600
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3F_1By2CrXexOHB2Xo2gc27CgXOwAv-HOcSyz6uS+vYg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa6W11Ah_ykiUdrqNrAbjy8zJxO7fXVa9cn1Yg1EYegxQ@mail.gmail.com>

one way or another that wealth gap will stop accelerating and super ultra
crazy rich people are fools if they're not worried about it and trying to
find a way to make that transition less apocalyptic.
John K Clark

I am not following you.  It seems that people would revolt now rather than
when the acceleration slows.  bill w

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 4:57 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 5:01 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Did the French Revolution accomplish its goals?  Change the economy for
>> the better?  Do better for the poor?  bill w
>>
>
> I'm not saying it would be a good idea, revolutions seldom make people
> happier especially not the poor. But the French Revolution did accomplish
> one (and only one as far as I can tell) of its goals, it did seperate the
> heads from a great many rich people's shoulders. I am saying that one way
> or another that wealth gap will stop accelerating and super ultra crazy
> rich people are fools if they're not worried about it and trying to find a
> way to make that transition less apocalyptic.
>
>  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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 23:36:01 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 18:36:01 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <005301d4d07e$32c8e3b0$985aab10$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv3sJ855K7vHDUtvC9uORHsbyu33VAf4F7HPoRDZ4OLuoQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 5:35 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

*> Did that 4.5 billion dollars go away?  Where is it now?*


As far as everyone except for the super ultra crazy rich is concerned all
that effort in constructing that idiotic boat went to exactly the same
place that a 4.5 billion dollar project to build pyramids would go, the
same place spending 4.5 billion dollars to dig holes and then immediately
fill them up again went. The only difference is building pyramids or
digging holes would be better public relations than a insanely expensive
pleasure craft.

*> Today at Costco, I looked at TVs for the first time in a coupla years.
> I saw what a marvelous TV one can get for one week of minimum wage.  These
> are 50 inch diagonal, 4k resolution, they get 400 bucks for them.  With
> that and free internet, the proletariat will not revolt. *
>

A $400 4K TV is very nice but just one day in a hospital cost about $2,000,
not counting the cost of surgery or the use of an ambulance. When a child
dies because the parents didn't have $2611 for a MRI I imagine they might
be a tad upset when they hear about a 536 foot long yacht with 2 swimming
pools, 2 helicopter pads, a mini-submarine and a disco hall. It also has a
missile defence system and a bullet proof master bedroom,  that part at
least was wise, it will be needed.


> *> The job of the revolutionary leader is to make the masses
> uncomfortable.*


And the existence of a golden yacht is making the job of that revolutionary
leader much easier.

John K Clark



>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Mar  1 23:51:53 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 18:51:53 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa6W11Ah_ykiUdrqNrAbjy8zJxO7fXVa9cn1Yg1EYegxQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
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On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 6:28 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>>one way or another that wealth gap will stop accelerating and super ultra
>> crazy rich people are fools if they're not worried about it and trying to
>> find a way to make that transition less apocalyptic.
>
>
> >I am not following you.  It seems that people would revolt now rather
> than when the acceleration slows.  bill w
>

One sure fire way to stop the acceleration of the wealth gap is to kill all
the rich people. If  super ultra crazy rich people would prefer another way
of doing it they had better start doing it now because there is one thing
you can be certain of, the wealth gap will *NOT *keep accelerating
forever, it's
only a question of how it will end. And some methods are more
unpleasant than others.

John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  2 00:43:29 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 16:43:29 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3sJ855K7vHDUtvC9uORHsbyu33VAf4F7HPoRDZ4OLuoQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <00d401d4d090$f50aa2d0$df1fe870$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Friday, March 1, 2019 3:36 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve

 

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 5:35 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

>> Did that 4.5 billion dollars go away?  Where is it now?

 

>?As far as everyone except for the super ultra crazy rich is concerned all that effort in constructing that idiotic boat went to exactly the same place that a 4.5 billion dollar project to build pyramids would go? John K Clark

 

 

So all those people who built the boat received part of the 4.5 billion and those who supplied the gold and silver received part of the 4.5 billion, the government received part of the 4.5 billion.  Where did it go after they spent it?  The people who received that 4.5 billion wouldn?t care if it was a boat builder or a home builder who bought their stuff, just so long as someone bought it.  So they get a piece of that 4.5 billion as well.

 

John? the money didn?t disappear.  It changed hands.  Wealth was created when it changed hands (the boat.)  When crazy-rich people spend a pile of money, a bunch of people got jobs and got their cut of the 4.5 billion.

 

The government got their cut every time money changed hands.  Everyone won in that transaction, even you (because unemployment went down, which helps everybody.)  I have no heartburn with any of that.  That?s why there were no mobs of pitchfork people.  On the contrary, there were crowds of cheering people as they launched the boat.  Had I been there I woulda been one of them.

 

I still don?t see the problem here.  Can you explain it again please?

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  2 00:58:27 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 16:58:27 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3sJ855K7vHDUtvC9uORHsbyu33VAf4F7HPoRDZ4OLuoQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
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Message-ID: <001201d4d093$0c2ca790$2485f6b0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve

 

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 5:35 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

>> Did that 4.5 billion dollars go away?  Where is it now?

 

>?The only difference is building pyramids or digging holes would be better public relations than a insanely expensive pleasure craft?

 

>?John K Clark

 

Sure, but of course the Egyptian pyramids were built by slaves whereas the boat was built by eager boat builders who were very pleased to have good jobs.

 

Consider the ancient pyramids and just try to imagine the long-term benefit they have provided, both for the Egyptians and those who visited them.  If those had never been built, how many tourist dollars would they not have Hoovered up?  Over all the years, those pyramids have generated untold billions in revenue, and will continue to do so far into the future, for those who oppose tourism and dislike antiquities have not been able to figure out how to destroy them.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Sat Mar  2 01:43:49 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 17:43:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <001201d4d093$0c2ca790$2485f6b0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <29E064D5-94AA-48EA-850E-2E7372CDB4BB@gmail.com>

On Mar 1, 2019, at 4:58 PM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
> Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
>  
> On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 5:35 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>  
> >> Did that 4.5 billion dollars go away?  Where is it now?
>  
> >?The only difference is building pyramids or digging holes would be better public relations than a insanely expensive pleasure craft?
>  
> >?John K Clark
>  
> Sure, but of course the Egyptian pyramids were built by slaves

No, the pyramids were NOT built by slaves. That?s a fiction that lives on. See, for example:

https://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html

No doubt, the fiction will live, but doing my part to make it go away. ;)

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  2 03:07:40 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 19:07:40 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <29E064D5-94AA-48EA-850E-2E7372CDB4BB@gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <002201d4d0a5$198f7400$4cae5c00$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan
Sent: Friday, March 1, 2019 5:44 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve

 

On Mar 1, 2019, at 4:58 PM, <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:



>>?Sure, but of course the Egyptian pyramids were built by slaves 

 

>?No, the pyramids were NOT built by slaves. That?s a fiction that lives on. See, for example:

 

https://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html

 

No doubt, the fiction will live, but doing my part to make it go away. ;)

 

Regards,





Dan

 

 

Well dang, I was misinformed.  Thanks Dan!

 

The guys who built the long golden boat sure were not slaves either.  They were proud skilled craftsmen, doing what they do best, enjoying their work while earning a living, feeding their families, sending their children to college or trade schools so they too can lift the load, carrying on a proud tradition.

 

When they were finished, imagine how those craftsmen and boat builders felt.  That beautiful watercraft slid away from the dock.  They must have felt something like ?I? helped? build? that??

 

I have been there.  I worked as a roofer one summer in my misspent youth.  Whenever I am in my old home town I go by there, knowing I worked on that building.

 

Work does good things to a mind and a spirit.  Rich people buy silly luxury items which puts people to work.  They make the pitchforks that no one will ever carry into the streets in protest, because there are enough jobs.

 

I don?t see the problem here.

 

spike

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  2 04:39:13 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 20:39:13 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003901d4d0b1$e42adc70$ac809550$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark



>?As you can see Americans are far too optimistic while most other countries are somewhat too pessimistic, only the Italians get it about right and see things as they actually are:  

 

Actual Mobility Versus Perceived Mobility  <https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0bIjqqXgAApZ3O.png> 

 

 John K Clark

 

 

 

 

The socialists have their task defined: crush American optimism.

 

spike

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  2 05:19:28 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 21:19:28 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <002201d4d0a5$198f7400$4cae5c00$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <000601d4d0b7$82e2ef10$88a8cd30$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Subject: RE: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve

 

 

 

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



 

>>?No, the pyramids were NOT built by slaves. That?s a fiction that lives on. See, for example:

 

https://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html

 

No doubt, the fiction will live, but doing my part to make it go away. ;)

 

Regards,

 

Dan

 

 

>?Well dang, I was misinformed.  Thanks Dan!...spike

 

 

 

 

Dan I read the article you cited.  Very interesting.  Cool I learn a new thing this day.

 

Think about the old timers back in the day when the pyramids were being started.  There were people all around doing the things that people did back in those days: getting food was a lot of it.  Mighta been making a few tools and things.  Now a new job is introduced carving and moving these huge rocks, figuring out ways to make that happen.  

 

Considering all the choices available, that woulda been a pretty cool job!  There is a lot of interesting engineering in what they did.  Afterwards, they could look at that huge pile of rocks and feel like their lives counted for something.  They really did, for the people living in Egypt today are likely descendants of the pyramid builders, and Egypt has certainly benefitted from those piles of rock still standing.

 

Given aaaaaallllll the cool stuff we have today, aaallll the cool interesting choices for careers for young people and all the opportunities for the older people, the whole scene we live in today?

 

CRIMONIES how the hell could anyone POSSIBLY BE PESSIMISTIC?  Look at all this cool stuff, EVERYWHERE around us, in our own homes, even those of us who don?t really have a lot of this old world?s wealth!  I do not understand what reasoning process goes to anything other than dancing like Snoopy the beagle at our wonderful good fortune.  I don?t understand the reasoning that leads to anything else besides Dynamic Optimism which is the DO in BEST DO IT SO, the principles which have shaped my adult life.

 

Friends, we have it made.  Now is good.  Tomorrow will be even better.

 

spike

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Sat Mar  2 08:07:24 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2019 00:07:24 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
Message-ID: <23849455-92C5-4034-B878-0190221FE915@gmail.com>

Dragon 2 is on its way to the ISS.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Mar  2 13:56:53 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2019 08:56:53 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <00d401d4d090$f50aa2d0$df1fe870$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv2j7Ce8R=xYCL1d0bEA_LovnGiwm175ucmU_bJ-9aMpgg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 7:49 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:



> >>?As far as everyone except for the super ultra crazy rich is concerned
>> all that effort in constructing that idiotic boat went to exactly the same
>> place that a 4.5 billion dollar project to build pyramids would go? John
>> K Clark
>
>
>
> *> So all those people who built the boat received part of the 4.5 billion
> and those who supplied the gold and silver received part of the 4.5
> billion, the government received part of the 4.5 billion.  Where did it go
> after they spent it?  The people who received that 4.5 billion wouldn?t
> care if it was a boat builder or a home builder who bought their stuff, **just
> so long as someone bought it.  So they get a piece of that 4.5 billion as
> well.*
>

Spike, is it your position that any large scale project is equally wise?
Does it matter if millions of people are building hospitals or pyramids for
dead trillionaires of a size that would put anything in Egypt to shame?
Will both projects contribute equally to advance social peace and
happiness? If you think so then I don't want to hear anything more about
wasteful government spending because a weapon system that works is the same
as a weapon system that doesn't because either way all that money spent on
them still exists and there is no such thing as a silly use of government
money or of money of any sort.

In fact I don't even understand why you object so strongly of the
government taking your money, after all according to you nothing changed,
the money is still there.

> *John? the money didn?t disappear. *
>

Money is just a token for the exchange of work, it's only a symbol for a
resource and you can't build anything with a symbol you need the resource
itself and money is nothing but a bookkeeping method for keeping track of
it. But work is more than a symbol it is the resource, unlike money you can
directly do something with work and the many millions of man hours that
went into the construction of a ridiculously expensive private yacht *DID*
disappear for nearly everyone because only one of the super ultra crazy
rich can make use of it and they are a hundred times rarer than Andean
condors and becoming rarer and richer every year.

And the rate at which the super ultra crazy rich are becoming rarer and
richer is accelerating so I want to ask you a very important question, do
you think this acceleration can continue for *eternity*, and if not what do
you think will stop it?

John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  2 16:13:18 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2019 08:13:18 -0800
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2j7Ce8R=xYCL1d0bEA_LovnGiwm175ucmU_bJ-9aMpgg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
 <005301d4d07e$32c8e3b0$985aab10$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv3sJ855K7vHDUtvC9uORHsbyu33VAf4F7HPoRDZ4OLuoQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <00d401d4d090$f50aa2d0$df1fe870$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv2j7Ce8R=xYCL1d0bEA_LovnGiwm175ucmU_bJ-9aMpgg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <008601d4d112$d9f16740$8dd435c0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve

 

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 7:49 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

  

>>>?As far as everyone except for the super ultra crazy rich is concerned all that effort in constructing that idiotic boat went to exactly the same place that a 4.5 billion dollar project to build pyramids would go? John K Clark

 

>> So all those people who built the boat received part of the 4.5 billion and those who supplied the gold and silver received part of the 4.5 billion, the government received part of the 4.5 billion.  Where did it go after they spent it?  The people who received that 4.5 billion wouldn?t care if it was a boat builder or a home builder who bought their stuff, just so long as someone bought it.  So they get a piece of that 4.5 billion as well.

 

>?Spike, is it your position that any large scale project is equally wise? Does it matter if millions of people are building hospitals or pyramids for dead trillionaires of a size that would put anything in Egypt to shame? Will both projects contribute equally to advance social peace and happiness?... John K Clark

 

 

 

Not at all John.  Some large scale projects are better than others.  The boat is better for promoting social wellbeing.

 

Consider the example you gave, the 4.5 billion dollar boat.  It really isn?t that.  It is really a 100 million dollar boat with 4.4 billion dollars worth of gold and silver aboard.  It isn?t all that different from if you got an ugly old 10 million dollar cargo ship and loaded 4.49 billion dollars worth of clunky old gold bricks aboard, as far as net worth, but? the 100 million dollar boat with the gold and silver shaped into decorative luxury items (for now) is a far more worthy large scale project, because it employs more people and inspires people to do great things like this boat.

 

The 4.5 billion dollar boat is cool.  It brings together a community of boat builders, high-end craftsmen, your designers and artists and such, these guys all come together, there is synergy as they all live in a thriving community, their kids go to school together and learn from each other, and all is well.  The money goes back into circulation, one way or the other.  Most of it went to people mining gold and silver, but the boat building community got their cut, the government got their cut, all is well.

 

Weapon systems: eh, the synergy isn?t so great.  It?s why I never worked on weapons.  I always avoided those projects at every opportunity.  I did some cool anti-weapon weapons, which are cool in their way.  In weapons work, when the project finishes, there isn?t a huge party where your handiwork slips into the sea with a wildly cheering mob (oh what a feeling that is.)

 

In general, the big rich-guy projects are the gift that keeps on giving.  Consider this guy Hearst.  Made his fortune writing fake news.  Built a castle down on the California coast, filled it with every kind of luxury item you can think of, collected art from all over the world, antiquities, did this and that.  Big waste, ja?  No, not at all.  That castle is still there, still being meticulously maintained.  It is a major tourist attraction today.  That castle probably cost fifty million in today?s dollars but generates that much every year in the tourist dollars it brings.  It employs a bunch of people, the maintenance, the tour guides, the yakkity yak and bla bla.  It inspires people to do fun interesting things with their money.

 

Weapons, eh, not so much.

 

So, to answer your question are all biggie projects equally worthy?  No.  Boats are better.

 

After that owner perishes, the cost of maintenance alone on that boat is beyond what his heirs can afford, so that boat becomes a floating tourist attraction, a museum, generating millions a year from people who like to gawk at stuff like this.

 

The person you want to talk to is our own Anders Sandberg.  He is involved in an organization called Effective Altruism.  They deal with crazy rich people, because after a certain point, more money just doesn?t really change a person?s life.  You can have a 4.5 billion dollar boat, but really only one of them.  You can?t sail on two at the same time.  So? 

 

So, ultra-rich people spend their time giving away their money.  But think about it: what if you have a Gatesian fortune to give away?  How do you do it?  We know of really expensive charity efforts which not only failed, but caused a lot of harm.  You mighta heard of the Gates Foundation and the Gaza greenhouses.  So, like any big project, you hire engineers, and take an engineering approach to charity.  Get a super-smart engineering team with guys like Anders, they figure out the best way to do the most good for the most people with your money.

 

When you rack and stack it that way, hire an engineering-minded team to make engineering-minded analyses, you find out that big luxury projects like building luxury boats make a lotta sense.

 

spike

 

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Mar  2 18:29:18 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2019 13:29:18 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Great Gatsby Curve
In-Reply-To: <008601d4d112$d9f16740$8dd435c0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv1LpBMCvtVUow24o9MxbrcTDxn-U74ayL-HRzKt1bh4Dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <008f01d4d05c$b21d72b0$16585810$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1qD13XqPNNirXS=O7SXewnc19nPtaZisTt4mRWgVXN5w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <008601d4d112$d9f16740$8dd435c0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2xaPFAC9Lj0rpR+3OT8WtnB3m4tNuAuMTboM9tjUEkRQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 2, 2019 at 11:19 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> *Consider the example you gave, the 4.5 billion dollar boat.  It really
> isn?t that.  It is really a 100 million dollar boat with 4.4 billion
> dollars worth of gold and silver aboard. *
>

Nothing as vulgar as silver it's platinum, but if you don't like that one
pick another of the 15 super ridiculous yachts on the list, like the 13,136
ton one with a concert hall big enough for a 50-piece orchestra, or the 1.5
billion dollar Eclipse that for some mysterious reason needs 2 helicopter
pads. By the way, the most expensive cruise ship ever built is the "Allure
Of The Sea" and it also cost 1.5 billion dollars but unlike the Eclipse it
can give pleasure to 6300 people at a time not just one ultra crazy rich
man.


> * > The money goes back into circulation, one way or the other. *
>

So what? I say again money is just a bookkeeping device that tells me what
percentage of a societies resources I can control; if I have enough control
to be able to build a 1000 foot tall stainless steel statue of myself
kicking a puppy and decide to do so others may think society's finite
resources could be better directed in other directions. They may conclude
that I would make far better decisions if a bullet were placed in my
brain.

*> In general, the big rich-guy projects are the gift that keeps on
> giving.  Consider this guy Hearst.  Made his fortune writing fake news.
> Built a castle down on the California coast, filled it with every kind of
> luxury item you can think of, collected art from all over the world,
> antiquities, did this and that.  Big waste, ja?  *
>

Bad example, unlike people like Rockefeller or Carnegie or even  JP Morgan
the world would have been a better place if William Randolph Hearst had
never been born; there probably would not have been a Spanish American War
for one thing.


> > *No, not at all.  That castle is still there, still being meticulously
> maintained.  It is a major tourist attraction today. *
>

And today the Great Pyramid gives joy to tourists (probably a great deal
more joy than it gave to the people that actually had to construct the
idiotic thing that spectacularly failed to do what it was designed to do)
so maybe in 4500 years somebody will find the remains of one of those
superyachts and the same thing will happen. But it wouldn't be wise to base
your economy on that slim reed.


> *> You can have a 4.5 billion dollar boat, but really only one of them.
> You can?t sail on two at the same time.  *
>

That doesn't matter you can still build 2 of them. These things were not
built to be used, most super ultra crazy rich people spend very little time
on their ridiculous yachts, they built them to impress other ultra crazy
rich people. My yacht is bigger than your yacht nana-nana-nah-nah!


> *> You mighta heard of the Gates Foundation *
>

If all the super ultra crazy rich were like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett
there would be no problem but most end up giving their fortune to their
worthless children who do the same to their children and presto the USA has
a de facto inherited aristocracy.

Top 10 Wealthiest Families in the World
<https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052416/top-10-wealthiest-families-world.asp>

And I'd still like to know if you really think the not just growth but
acceleration of the wealth gap can continue forever.

 John K Clark
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Sun Mar  3 00:57:04 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2019 16:57:04 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Room temp superconductor?
Message-ID: <B794BC43-EBDB-47FC-8CE1-433265E992BA@gmail.com>

https://m.phys.org/news/2019-02-navy-patent-room-temperature-superconductor.html

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sun Mar  3 19:59:22 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 11:59:22 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
Message-ID: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>

 

The newly elected leader of one of the USA's major political parties tells
us the world will come to an end in 12 years due to global warming, and that
she has a plan to get rid of airplanes and cows.

 

China has handed us a solution to make it so:

 

https://www.apnews.com/9d43f4b74260411797043ddd391c13d8

 

We buy their face recognition system, set up to prevent anyone with low
social credit from buying plane tickets, which reduces the demand, which
reduces the CO2 emissions.  Once we get the system in place, we gradually
raise the bar for the amount of social credit needed to buy a plane ticket.
Then we apply it to beef, which reduces the number of farting cows.  Result:
we get rid of planes and we all go vegan!

 

If we do this quickly, we may be able to squeeze perhaps 14 years out of
this abused old planet before the enviro-apocalypse.

 

spike

 

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From msd001 at gmail.com  Sun Mar  3 20:32:45 2019
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 15:32:45 -0500
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKVvvkx1Z7+9QJ+HUnGXXptNhzauv=qTu=ixKS60fuhgQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Mar 3, 2019, 3:04 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
We buy their face recognition system, set up to prevent anyone with low
social credit from buying plane tickets, which reduces the demand, which
reduces the CO2 emissions.  Once we get the system in place, we gradually
raise the bar for the amount of social credit needed to buy a plane
ticket.  Then we apply it to beef, which reduces the number of farting
cows.  Result: we get rid of planes and we all go vegan!

How much social credit does a cow have; and how much does it lose for
farting?

Do cows really care that much about being allowed to get plane tickets?

>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sun Mar  3 21:10:05 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 13:10:05 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbKVvvkx1Z7+9QJ+HUnGXXptNhzauv=qTu=ixKS60fuhgQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAOJFdbKVvvkx1Z7+9QJ+HUnGXXptNhzauv=qTu=ixKS60fuhgQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <008601d4d205$7a4af830$6ee0e890$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Sent: Sunday, March 3, 2019 12:33 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] solution to the world ending

 

On Sun, Mar 3, 2019, 3:04 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

>>?We buy their face recognition system, set up to prevent anyone with low social credit from buying plane tickets, which reduces the demand, which reduces the CO2 emissions.  Once we get the system in place, we gradually raise the bar for the amount of social credit needed to buy a plane ticket.  Then we apply it to beef, which reduces the number of farting cows.  Result: we get rid of planes and we all go vegan!

 

>?How much social credit does a cow have; and how much does it lose for farting?

 

>?Do cows really care that much about being allowed to get plane tickets?

 

 

 

That?s the spirit Mike.  

 

Having a government deeply involved in a memetic civil war (with itself only) is all rather entertaining, if you don?t take it too seriously.  I don?t.  It gets funnier every day.  If one were to write a description of today?s US government based on actual mainstream news headlines, and give it to a person who has been completely out of the loop for 10 years, in a coma or something, they would find your novel too implausible to be entertaining.  They wouldn?t believe a word of it for a minute if you told them it was non-fiction.

 

The China face recognition thing does give one pause, if it is true.  If they can make face-rec work there, it can durn sure work here: fewer people, more genetic variation.  If China has that, then we can buy it (hell it?s just software, ja?) then any store can recognize shoplifters on his way in the store.  We can create databases of all kinds of stuff, the names of those you see once in a long while in the neighborhood, that sorta thing.

 

Granted it does give the government the option of super-enforcement.

 

I am eager to see the comments by others on this list about that.

 

spike 

 

 

 

 

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Mar  3 21:45:05 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 16:45:05 -0500
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 3:05 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

*> she has a plan to get rid of airplanes and cows.*


So says Trump State Television (aka Fox news).

 John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sun Mar  3 22:11:48 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 14:11:48 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Sunday, March 3, 2019 1:45 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] solution to the world ending

 

 

 

On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 3:05 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

> she has a plan to get rid of airplanes and cows.

 

So says Trump State Television (aka Fox news).

 

 John K Clark  

 

 

NPR, ja, always promoting POTUS dontchaknow.

 

Page 2 of 6:

 

https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729035-Green-New-Deal-FAQ

 

 

The exact quote in the Green New Deal document released by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

 

??We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions in 10 years because we aren?t sure we?ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast??

 

OK then.  My question for Green New Dealers: if we are shooting for net-zero emissions rather than zero emissions, why would we need to get rid of either farting cows or planes?  If we are shooting for net zero, that shouldn?t be hard to do.  We might be able to do it without any really significant changes in our style really.  We would need to divert a lot, a looooot of fresh water inland.  We would need to stop dumping fresh water into the sea.  We could use that water to support something really bio-massy like kudzu.  This would draw down so much CO2, we could make it to carbon emissions net zero that way.  We could keep our farting cows and planes and still make it.

 

spike

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Mon Mar  4 00:33:18 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 19:33:18 -0500
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3pwhwGOCO7xqPxjY1X93Mj1s6HEUd6f6pxqs0wv4T5nA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 5:17 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:



> > *The exact quote in the Green New Deal document released by Rep.
> Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:*
>
>
>
> *??We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions in 10
> years because we aren?t sure we?ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows
> and airplanes that fast??*
>

OK you got me, I can't deny that was a pretty brain damn dumb thing for her
to say. If we need to get rid of farting cows wouldn't we have to get rid
of farting people too?

John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Mar  4 00:45:25 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 18:45:25 -0600
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYXSgOQXOLW0a-Dih9sE5bZTGQYJMdkyS93dqYjJxqyuQ@mail.gmail.com>

While I do not care who has my phone conversations, email, street address,
etc., I am disturbed by the influx of cameras.  Nothing, not even nuclear
war, disturbs me as much as a police state.  Since crime, particularly
petty crime, is rampant, there will have to be many more policemen and
people watching all the videos.  I just don't want to pay for all of that.
Some obsessive gets to a high level and wants to find and destroy every
single criminal - that's a nightmare.

I do want criminals and wanted people caught and dealt with, so maybe I am
a hypocrite here.   But how would feel if you were in public places and
always on some camera?  Makes playing pocket pool nearly impossible!  And
what if some chemist designs something swallowed that makes farts in
color?  Then you can't do that in public either!  Imagine your picture when
your picture with a big green cloud behind you go viral on the web?  (Yes,
I am aware of Ben Franklin's efforts to make farts smell good.)

On another subject:  I suggest diapers for cows that absorb the methane,
then burned in some way to save energy.  Collecting the bags opens up a
completely new job description ("I'm in the gas business"  or "I am in
bovine chemistry" .) and so will boost the economy.  (long ago there was a
big put-on (can't think of the word) where a guy gets on the Carson show
and advocates bras for cows - for modesty.)

bill w



On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 4:16 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *John Clark
> *Sent:* Sunday, March 3, 2019 1:45 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] solution to the world ending
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 3:05 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> *> **she has a plan to get rid of airplanes and cows.*
>
>
>
> So says Trump State Television (aka Fox news).
>
>
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
> NPR, ja, always promoting POTUS dontchaknow.
>
>
>
> Page 2 of 6:
>
>
>
> https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729035-Green-New-Deal-FAQ
>
>
>
>
>
> The exact quote in the Green New Deal document released by Rep. Alexandria
> Ocasio-Cortez:
>
>
>
> ??We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions in 10 years
> because we aren?t sure we?ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and
> airplanes that fast??
>
>
>
> OK then.  My question for Green New Dealers: if we are shooting for
> net-zero emissions rather than zero emissions, why would we need to get rid
> of either farting cows or planes?  If we are shooting for net zero, that
> shouldn?t be hard to do.  We might be able to do it without any really
> significant changes in our style really.  We would need to divert a lot, a
> looooot of fresh water inland.  We would need to stop dumping fresh water
> into the sea.  We could use that water to support something really
> bio-massy like kudzu.  This would draw down so much CO2, we could make it
> to carbon emissions net zero that way.  We could keep our farting cows and
> planes and still make 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 spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar  4 03:37:36 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 19:37:36 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3pwhwGOCO7xqPxjY1X93Mj1s6HEUd6f6pxqs0wv4T5nA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv3pwhwGOCO7xqPxjY1X93Mj1s6HEUd6f6pxqs0wv4T5nA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005b01d4d23b$9cd25340$d676f9c0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Sunday, March 3, 2019 4:33 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] solution to the world ending

 

 

 

On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 5:17 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

  

> The exact quote in the Green New Deal document released by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

 

??We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions in 10 years because we aren?t sure we?ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast??

 

OK you got me, I can't deny that was a pretty brain damn dumb thing for her to say. If we need to get rid of farting cows wouldn't we have to get rid of farting people too?

 

John K Clark

 

 

 

Noooo!  Because cows won?t arrange to pipe water inland to grow kudzu to achieve net zero carbon emissions.  They will just stand around and fart.  But we can actually do something: we can grow stuff, haul down that carbon.

 

Don?t be too hard on Rep. Cortez however.  She?s just a kid.  She?s a product of the modern public school system steadily marching to ever more extremism environmentalism.  If you look at the curriculum being dished out today, you will immediately see what I am talking about.  It has been expunged of all reasonable moderation.  There are pleeeenty of current students who sincerely believe the world is going to end in 12 years because of global warming, plenty.

 

spike

 

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar  4 03:45:35 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 19:45:35 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYXSgOQXOLW0a-Dih9sE5bZTGQYJMdkyS93dqYjJxqyuQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYXSgOQXOLW0a-Dih9sE5bZTGQYJMdkyS93dqYjJxqyuQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <006c01d4d23c$b9dac520$2d904f60$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] solution to the world ending

 

>?  Some obsessive gets to a high level and wants to find and destroy every single criminal - that's a nightmare? bill w

 

 

 

Ja there is that.  But something else worries me more.  We know that cameras are stand-alone battery powered, small, and can transmit to a nearby receiver.  Something like that would be easy to hide in any hotel room.  It makes good video for a coupla months before it needs to be retrieved (or leave it behind (they don?t cost much.))  Then the bad guy can watch, figure out the license plate number of whoever she just recorded in that hotel room, work backwards, get an email @, post him with an offer to not post that video to FaceBook if he will hand over 1000 bucks in BitCoin.

 

Guessing plenty will quietly hand over the BitCash.

 

Keep in mind now, whenever you are staying in a hotel, someone might be watching and recording everything.

 

spike

 

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar  4 03:50:05 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2019 19:50:05 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <005b01d4d23b$9cd25340$d676f9c0$@rainier66.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv3pwhwGOCO7xqPxjY1X93Mj1s6HEUd6f6pxqs0wv4T5nA@mail.gmail.com>
 <005b01d4d23b$9cd25340$d676f9c0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <007d01d4d23d$5af5e750$10e1b5f0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 



 

>?Don?t be too hard on Rep. Cortez however?spike

 

 

?because she rescued her district from thousands of high-paying jobs.  

 

Nashville Tennessee considers her their favorite representative.  spike

 

 

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From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Mar  4 08:27:24 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 00:27:24 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <006c01d4d23c$b9dac520$2d904f60$@rainier66.com>
References: <006501d4d1fb$98c87ee0$ca597ca0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv31axoqJGz1FNZEtQ9sbOFtVXb01YiJbn2rPvo0Gw01jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001d01d4d20e$18deb290$4a9c17b0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYXSgOQXOLW0a-Dih9sE5bZTGQYJMdkyS93dqYjJxqyuQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <006c01d4d23c$b9dac520$2d904f60$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNS-QEncm+vaq1JouGncYdbGvvZ9Z5m-8K_BrJKvW7TpzA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 7:54 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> Then the bad guy can watch, figure out the license plate number of whoever she just recorded in that hotel room, work backwards, get an email @, post him with an offer to not post that video to FaceBook if he will hand over 1000 bucks in BitCoin.

Or better yet, don't bother recording, and just blackmail without the video.

And if they pay, demand more and more until they stop paying.  That's
one of the problems of paying blackmailers: if you only pay them off,
when they demand it, you've never bought anything that can enforce
permanent silence.

From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar  4 15:45:06 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 07:45:06 -0800
Subject: [ExI] i'm a creep
Message-ID: <004801d4d2a1$3eab2c40$bc0184c0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

So now this robot by Boston Dynamics can do a backflip, which is just wicked
cool in my view, but the news stories are saying it is "creepy."

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNeZWP5Mx9s

 

Seems like everything I think is just crazy cool, such as enormous
tarantulas and backflipping robots are described as creepy.  Guess I now
know what I am.

 

{8^D

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Mar  4 16:07:06 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 10:07:06 -0600
Subject: [ExI] i'm a creep
In-Reply-To: <004801d4d2a1$3eab2c40$bc0184c0$@rainier66.com>
References: <004801d4d2a1$3eab2c40$bc0184c0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaVnb15UznmWm+nRr94DJR3ZcKoX5EfJ7W-9c=CBiQdRg@mail.gmail.com>

Why, the poor thing needs a head.  Getting up from a supine position is as
impressive as the flip.  bill w

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 9:50 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> So now this robot by Boston Dynamics can do a backflip, which is just
> wicked cool in my view, but the news stories are saying it is ?creepy.?
>
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNeZWP5Mx9s
>
>
>
> Seems like everything I think is just crazy cool, such as enormous
> tarantulas and backflipping robots are described as creepy.  Guess I now
> know what I am?
>
>
>
> {8^D
>
>
>
> 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  Mon Mar  4 23:53:17 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2019 15:53:17 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
Message-ID: <20190304155317.Horde.gBnyqsBC6hCwm2jDz-pLhOb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Spike:

> https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729035-Green-New-Deal-FAQ
> The exact quote in the Green New Deal document released by Rep.  
> Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

This is the first details I have gotten on Ocasio-Cortez's plan. I  
will give her credit for her ambitiousness, her plan is the closest  
thing I have seen to a serious proposal to climate-control the entire  
planet. Political sentiment aside, I have some general technical  
criticisms of her plan.

First, I don't think her goal of eliminating combustion engines is  
even remotely possible if nuclear power is taken off the table at the  
outset. Electric cars still need to get their energy from somewhere.

Right now, fossil fuels like natural gas and coal supply approximately  
60% of our electricity. Nuclear power and renewable sources supply an  
additional 20% each. Keeping in mind that renewable sources like  
hydroelectric are defined by geographical or climatic features such as  
mountains, rivers, volcanic heating, prevailing winds and such, I  
don't see how renewable electricity generation can increase by another  
300%. While some form of nuclear energy will be necessary, fusion  
would be ideal.

> "We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions in 10  
> years because we aren?t sure we'll be able to fully get rid of  
> farting cows and airplanes that fast"
>
> OK then.  My question for Green New Dealers: if we are shooting for  
> net-zero emissions rather than zero emissions, why would we need to  
> get rid of either farting cows or planes?  If we are shooting for  
> net zero, that shouldn?t be hard to do.  We might be able to do it  
> without any really significant changes in our style really.  We  
> would need to divert a lot, a looooot of fresh water inland.  We  
> would need to stop dumping fresh water into the sea.  We could use  
> that water to support something really bio-massy like kudzu.  This  
> would draw down so much CO2, we could make it to carbon emissions  
> net zero that way.  We could keep our farting cows and planes and  
> still make it.

We can't seem to affordably deliver fresh water to people in Flint,  
Michigan, so how do you propose we do that? Especially without  
completely screwing the pooch with regards to hydroelectric? I am not  
being sarcastic, just wondering if you had an engineering suggestion?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissions-per-person-capita

I didn't see anything in the GND that precluded using fast growing  
plants to sequester CO2. According to the Guardian, the average  
American produces approximately 20 tons of CO2 per year. In order to  
preserve the American lifestyle, would have to irrigate and grow 20  
tons of new vegetation per American per year or 6 billion tons total  
per year. Can we reasonably do so? How do we protect all that  
vegetation from wild fires that would completely foil our efforts?

Furthermore, adding plant biomass will have no impact on cow farts  
which will need to be separately dealt with. I do not see nation-wide  
veganism as an option for those Americans who are genetically  
predisposed to carnivory. Trying to ban livestock and meat-eating will  
likely lead to cannibalism, especially as habitual herbivory will  
render many Americans more palatable to the more carnivorous Americans.

More practical options would include keeping livestock under  
transparent tent-like canopies made to harvest the methane which is  
lighter than air and would rise. The methane could then be used to  
fuel the machinery involved with the canopied cattle-ranching.  
Assuming we don't go the route of vat grown meat.

Besides, it is ridiculous that we would wring our hands about  
intentionally killing off malaria-hosting mosquito species yet so  
non-chalantly discuss eradicating cattle as if somehow a disease  
causing insect has more moral worth than a domesticated food animal  
that has been our symbiotic partner for thousands of years. I mean if  
society no longer has a use for cattle, we are certainly not going to  
tolerate them roaming around our land trampling our kids and farting  
all day.

I mean over-all, my impression of the Green New Deal is that it is a  
bunch of really cool large-scale environmental engineering projects  
that would be a step toward becoming a type-I civilization.  
Unfortunately it is interspersed with a lot of wasteful government run  
social programs that look unnecessary if we actually commit to the  
engineering and infrastructure aspects which should provide a bunch of  
new jobs as is. After all, how can we hope to terraform another planet  
like Mars if we can't climate-control the good old Earth?

Maybe we should separate out the Green part from the New Deal part?

Stuart LaForge





From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar  5 01:02:20 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 17:02:20 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <20190304155317.Horde.gBnyqsBC6hCwm2jDz-pLhOb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190304155317.Horde.gBnyqsBC6hCwm2jDz-pLhOb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <001201d4d2ef$1828c9d0$487a5d70$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Stuart LaForge
Sent: Monday, March 4, 2019 3:53 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] solution to the world ending


Quoting Spike:

>>... https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729035-Green-New-Deal
> -FAQ The exact quote in the Green New Deal document released by Rep.
> Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

>...This is the first details I have gotten on Ocasio-Cortez's plan. I will
give her credit for her ambitiousness, her plan is the closest thing I have
seen to a serious proposal to climate-control the entire planet. Political
sentiment aside, I have some general technical criticisms of her plan...

The kinds of things outlined here would take 50 years at least, never mind
10, and would include slamming nuke plants into the ground as fast as we can
build them.

What I hope the GND accomplishes is to focus peoples' attention on a useful
question: if global warming really is going to end the world in 12 years,
why can't we eliminate fossil fuels?  It causes focus on a big solar project
that is going in near a historically significant area in Virginia: any solar
project requires enormous swaths of land.  If it is built east of the
Mississippi, it requires deforestation and habitat destruction, for
surprisingly little power generation.

You mentioned falling water: from a power generation point of view, most of
the best resources are already being tapped.  There isn't a lot of new
potential, and the lower potential falling water sources have even more
environmental cost than the ones already in place.

At least some of the GreenPeace crowd gets that.  They recognize that if one
is interested in preserving wild places and forests, nuclear is a good deal.
We understand it creates a bunch of hazards in the form of bad guys wanting
to get ahold of nuclear material, but from a strictly environmentalist point
of view, nuclear power might be our best bet.













First, I don't think her goal of eliminating combustion engines is even
remotely possible if nuclear power is taken off the table at the outset.
Electric cars still need to get their energy from somewhere.

Right now, fossil fuels like natural gas and coal supply approximately 60%
of our electricity. Nuclear power and renewable sources supply an additional
20% each. Keeping in mind that renewable sources like hydroelectric are
defined by geographical or climatic features such as mountains, rivers,
volcanic heating, prevailing winds and such, I don't see how renewable
electricity generation can increase by another 300%. While some form of
nuclear energy will be necessary, fusion would be ideal.

> "We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions in 10 
> years because we aren?t sure we'll be able to fully get rid of farting 
> cows and airplanes that fast"
>
> OK then.  My question for Green New Dealers: if we are shooting for 
> net-zero emissions rather than zero emissions, why would we need to 
> get rid of either farting cows or planes?  If we are shooting for net 
> zero, that shouldn?t be hard to do.  We might be able to do it without 
> any really significant changes in our style really.  We would need to 
> divert a lot, a looooot of fresh water inland.  We would need to stop 
> dumping fresh water into the sea.  We could use that water to support 
> something really bio-massy like kudzu.  This would draw down so much 
> CO2, we could make it to carbon emissions net zero that way.  We could 
> keep our farting cows and planes and still make it.

We can't seem to affordably deliver fresh water to people in Flint,
Michigan, so how do you propose we do that? Especially without completely
screwing the pooch with regards to hydroelectric? I am not being sarcastic,
just wondering if you had an engineering suggestion?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emission
s-per-person-capita

I didn't see anything in the GND that precluded using fast growing plants to
sequester CO2. According to the Guardian, the average American produces
approximately 20 tons of CO2 per year. In order to preserve the American
lifestyle, would have to irrigate and grow 20 tons of new vegetation per
American per year or 6 billion tons total per year. Can we reasonably do so?
How do we protect all that vegetation from wild fires that would completely
foil our efforts?

Furthermore, adding plant biomass will have no impact on cow farts which
will need to be separately dealt with. I do not see nation-wide veganism as
an option for those Americans who are genetically predisposed to carnivory.
Trying to ban livestock and meat-eating will likely lead to cannibalism,
especially as habitual herbivory will render many Americans more palatable
to the more carnivorous Americans.

More practical options would include keeping livestock under transparent
tent-like canopies made to harvest the methane which is lighter than air and
would rise. The methane could then be used to fuel the machinery involved
with the canopied cattle-ranching.  
Assuming we don't go the route of vat grown meat.

Besides, it is ridiculous that we would wring our hands about intentionally
killing off malaria-hosting mosquito species yet so non-chalantly discuss
eradicating cattle as if somehow a disease causing insect has more moral
worth than a domesticated food animal that has been our symbiotic partner
for thousands of years. I mean if society no longer has a use for cattle, we
are certainly not going to tolerate them roaming around our land trampling
our kids and farting all day.

I mean over-all, my impression of the Green New Deal is that it is a bunch
of really cool large-scale environmental engineering projects that would be
a step toward becoming a type-I civilization.  
Unfortunately it is interspersed with a lot of wasteful government run
social programs that look unnecessary if we actually commit to the
engineering and infrastructure aspects which should provide a bunch of new
jobs as is. After all, how can we hope to terraform another planet like Mars
if we can't climate-control the good old Earth?

Maybe we should separate out the Green part from the New Deal part?

Stuart LaForge




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


From avant at sollegro.com  Tue Mar  5 03:43:25 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2019 19:43:25 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <1873358410.9370620.1551752491412@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20190304155317.Horde.gBnyqsBC6hCwm2jDz-pLhOb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <001201d4d2ef$1828c9d0$487a5d70$@rainier66.com>
 <1873358410.9370620.1551752491412@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190304194325.Horde.k1pZLhjq3FGwXLVoIyAaCy0@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Quoting Spike:

>>> ... https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729035-Green-New-Deal
>> -FAQ The exact quote in the Green New Deal document released by Rep.
>> Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

> The kinds of things outlined here would take 50 years at least, never mind
> 10, and would include slamming nuke plants into the ground as fast as we can
> build them.

You're right. If we broke ground today, we would be lucky to have the  
first few nuclear reactors online in 10 years. But 50 years might not  
be too late either so I am all for the trying. I see no benefit to  
procrastinating our weaning off of fossil fuels. Especially because  
the first country to achieve fossil fuel independence would have a  
technological advantage in any armed conflict.

> What I hope the GND accomplishes is to focus peoples' attention on a useful
> question: if global warming really is going to end the world in 12 years,
> why can't we eliminate fossil fuels?

Somebody's world is ending every second of every day, yet the world at  
large spins unperturbed. Where did you get this 12 year figure from?  
Global warming is not going to end the world just change the climate.  
Those who loive in


Part of the reason why we can't eliminate fossil fuels is because for  
the longest time Saudi and the other OPEC countries have been  
manipulating oil prices to draw out green energy investors with high  
oil prices, then when the green energy companies are just starting to  
get some traction, the Saudis would open the spiggots all the way and  
dump oil on the market to cause the green energy investments to crash.  
The really stupid thing is that they got the idea from American  
consultants.

> It causes focus on a big solar project
> that is going in near a historically significant area in Virginia: any solar
> project requires enormous swaths of land.? If it is built east of the
> Mississippi, it requires deforestation and habitat destruction, for
> surprisingly little power generation.

I agree, Spike. I don't think that going into competition with trees  
for sunlight is really all that green of us. And Chernobyl has become  
a veritable wild life preserve despite all that scary radiation. Turns  
out deer and wolves don't care, they are just glad WE aren't there.  
Besides Spike, IMO fusion is the real "solar energy". If someone  
proposed a Manhattan Project for controlled fusion, they would have my  
vote.

> You mentioned falling water: from a power generation point of view, most of
> the best resources are already being tapped.? There isn't a lot of new
> potential, and the lower potential falling water sources have even more
> environmental cost than the ones already in place.
>
> At least some of the GreenPeace crowd gets that.? They recognize that if one
> is interested in preserving wild places and forests, nuclear is a good deal.
> We understand it creates a bunch of hazards in the form of bad guys wanting
> to get ahold of nuclear material, but from a strictly environmentalist point
> of view, nuclear power might be our best bet.

Yes. Nuclear energy IS green energy. Google "Chernobyl wildlife" if  
you don't believe me. If we are worried about bad guys getting nuclear  
material, then maybe we should build automated nuclear power plants  
inside of wildlife preserves. Grizzly bears might make a good natural  
deterrent against trespassers. And if they get past the bears, then  
they would have to deal with the security bots, if humans are not on  
location, we could even reduce shielding so that the radiation itself  
is a deterrent against bad guys.

Stuart LaForge



From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar  5 04:19:27 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 20:19:27 -0800
Subject: [ExI] solution to the world ending
In-Reply-To: <20190304194325.Horde.k1pZLhjq3FGwXLVoIyAaCy0@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190304155317.Horde.gBnyqsBC6hCwm2jDz-pLhOb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <001201d4d2ef$1828c9d0$487a5d70$@rainier66.com>
 <1873358410.9370620.1551752491412@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190304194325.Horde.k1pZLhjq3FGwXLVoIyAaCy0@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <000601d4d30a$9fe4e960$dfaebc20$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge
...

>...Somebody's world is ending every second of every day, yet the world at large spins unperturbed. Where did you get this 12 year figure from?  Stuart LaForge

>From the newly-elected leader of one of the US major parties:

"Millennials, and Gen z, and all these folks that come after us, are looking up and we're like 'the world will end in 12 years if we don't address climate change, and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'"  Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/426353-ocasio-cortez-the-world-will-end-in-12-years-if-we-dont-address

Stuart I included it as a bit of humor.  I will freely confess two things: she is a cute rascal and she makes me laugh.  I can watch her speeches with the sound muted.  She's about 3 decades too young for my taste, but I can envision what she will look like 30 yrs from now.  With the sound muted...

A characteristic of kids is they don't realize how short a time is 10 years.  Not much changes in 10 years.  Internet time it is forever.  Technology time, it is a lot.  Nature... doesn't even notice 10 years go by.  

spike



From avant at sollegro.com  Tue Mar  5 17:05:27 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2019 09:05:27 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Nanoparticle injection grants nightvision to mice.
Message-ID: <20190305090527.Horde.01XDCbMeA4JI8vKK0xJvlRU@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Now this technology scores really high on the H plus cool meter:  
injectable nanoparticles that allow mammals to see near infrared. The  
same wavelengths used by so-called night vision goggles only unlike  
night vision goggles, the nanoparticles work during the daytime too.  
So many applications . . .


http://www.sci-news.com/biology/mice-infrared-vision-06960.html

"Humans and other mammals are limited to seeing a range of wavelengths  
of light called visible light, which includes the wavelengths of the  
rainbow. But infrared radiation, which has a longer wavelength, is all  
around us. People, animals and objects emit infrared light as they  
give off heat, and objects can also reflect infrared light. Now a team  
of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School,  
the University of Science and Technology of China and China?s Center  
for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology has  
developed technology to give night vision to mammals. A single  
injection of nanoantennae in the mice?s eyes bestowed infrared vision  
for up to 10 weeks with minimal side effects, allowing them to see  
near-infrared light even during the day and with enough specificity to  
distinguish between different shapes.

Injectable photoreceptor-binding nanoparticles with the ability to  
convert photons from low-energy to high-energy forms allow mice to  
develop infrared vision without compromising their normal vision and  
associated behavioral responses. Image credit: Ma et al, doi:  
10.1016/j.cell.2019.01.038.
Injectable photoreceptor-binding nanoparticles with the ability to  
convert photons from low-energy to high-energy forms allow mice to  
develop infrared vision without compromising their normal vision and  
associated behavioral responses. Image credit: Ma et al, doi:  
10.1016/j.cell.2019.01.038.

The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum  
that is observed by the human eye. A typical mammalian eye will  
respond to wavelengths from about 400 to 700 nm (nanometers).

However, this is only a small percentage of the full electromagnetic  
spectrum. The detection of longer wavelength light, such as  
near-infrared (NIR) light or infrared light, is impossible.

The human eye is unable to see NIR or to project an NIR image to the  
brain without the aid of complicated and cumbersome electronic  
devices, such as night vision goggles. During the day, these goggles  
become saturated and lose their ability to function.

?The visible light that can be perceived by human?s natural vision  
occupies just a very small fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum,?  
said study co-author Dr. Tian Xue, a researcher at the University of  
Science and Technology of China.

?Electromagnetic waves longer or shorter than visible light carry lots  
of information.?

?With this research, we?ve broadly expanded the applications of our  
nanoparticle technology both in the lab and translationally. These  
nanoantennae will allow scientists to explore a number of intriguing  
questions, from how the brain interprets visual signals to helping  
treat color blindness,? said Dr. Gang Han, from the University of  
Massachusetts Medical School.

In the study, the scientists developed lectin protein conjugated  
nanoparticles that can be delivered in droplets.

These proteins guide the nanoantennae and ?glue? them to the outside  
of retinal photoreceptors in mice. Once anchored on the cells, these  
microscopic antennae convert NIR into visible, green light.

The green light is observed by the retinal cell and images are sent  
and interpreted by the brain as visible light. This happens without  
the aid of complicated equipment.



The researchers also developed a series of tests to verify that the  
mice treated with the nanoparticles were fully capable of perceiving  
NIR light.

They demonstrated that mice injected with these nanoantennae can not  
only perceive NIR light, but also obtain NIR pattern vision and are  
even able to differentiate between sophisticated shape patterns such  
as triangles and circles.

Treated mice were able to perceive these light patterns even in  
daylight conditions, indicating that the nanoparticles were working in  
parallel with conventional vision.

Also, thanks to the close proximity of the nanoantennae and  
photoreceptors, an exceptionally low power NIR LED lamp light is  
sufficient to activate the nanoparticles.

After two weeks, the ability wore off and the nanoparticles left no  
lingering effects to the mice or their vision.

?We believe that this research is a major advance in the field of  
biotechnology. This concept-provoking study should pave the way to  
numerous critical applications via the unique creation of mammalian  
NIR visual ability and have high translational potential,? Dr. Han said.

?Moreover, it is very likely that the sky may look very differently  
both at night and in daytime. We may have the capability to view all  
the hidden information from NIR and IR radiation in the universe which  
is invisible to our naked eyes.?

The results were published in the journal Cell.


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Mar  5 21:04:01 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 15:04:01 -0600
Subject: [ExI] quote of the day
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZJ51kNa2nN=eD+E7O8cc=9GFJnt_XrMEpbxeg=MnPLBQ@mail.gmail.com>

"It's not violent death that terrifies men.  It's honest women."

bill w
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Mar  5 21:07:12 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 15:07:12 -0600
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>

OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time
ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.

Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.

bill w
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From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Mar  5 21:34:14 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 13:34:14 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>

Three possibly-cheating solutions:

1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.

2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with STDs
to have sex and not give each other what they got.

3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used
condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were
disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty
needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's
"D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
wrote:

> OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time
> ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
>
> Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar  5 22:35:49 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 14:35:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com>  wrote:

OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.

 

Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.

 

bill w

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report for duty aboard ship the next day.

 

Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time, so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall order ja?  Even for a professional.

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

 

Three possibly-cheating solutions:

 

1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.

 

2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.

 

3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.

 

_______________________________________________
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 foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar  6 00:18:34 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 18:18:34 -0600
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>

OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise the
puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three sailors
have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...

bill w

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time
> ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
>
>
>
> Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first guy
> uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy uses
> second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report for
> duty aboard ship the next day.
>
>
>
> Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So
> the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor
> puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses
> outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but
> she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time,
> so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle
> doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall
> order ja?  Even for a professional.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *Adrian Tymes
> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> Three possibly-cheating solutions:
>
>
>
> 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
>
>
>
> 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with STDs
> to have sex and not give each other what they got.
>
>
>
> 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used
> condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were
> disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty
> needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's
> "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar  6 01:07:07 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 17:07:07 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004201d4d3b8$eb8b38c0$c2a1aa40$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

 

OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...

 

bill w

 

 

BillW, that clarification doesn?t remove the ambiguity at all.  We live in an age when humans with all (traditionally) male sex organs and all the testosterone-related bone and muscle structure are competing and winning scholarships and medals in women?s (Title 9) competitions.  The sports world is falling all over itself trying to figure out what to do with it now, but wait, the real challenge is clear and in the easily-foreseeable future.

 

What happens when an athlete who had been running well but not winning men?s athletic competitions decides she will now compete in women?s competitions? and begins to set world records?  Will those athletes get an asterisk by the new records?  If they don?t, will those who were born with female sex organs never again be able to even get close to a world record in women?s sports?  How will Olympic committees react when American ?women? show up wanting to compete in women?s sports?  I don?t know to all the above, but it will be most entertaining to watch them deal with the mess.

 

spike

 

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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Mar  6 02:44:47 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 18:44:47 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>

My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
wrote:

> OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise the
> puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three sailors
> have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...
>
> bill w
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
>> wrote:
>>
>> OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time
>> ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
>>
>>
>>
>> Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different
>> STDs.
>>
>>
>>
>> bill w
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first
>> guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy
>> uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report
>> for duty aboard ship the next day.
>>
>>
>>
>> Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So
>> the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor
>> puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses
>> outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but
>> she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time,
>> so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle
>> doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall
>> order ja?  Even for a professional.
>>
>>
>>
>> spike
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
>> Of *Adrian Tymes
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
>> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>>
>>
>>
>> Three possibly-cheating solutions:
>>
>>
>>
>> 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
>>
>>
>>
>> 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with
>> STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.
>>
>>
>>
>> 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used
>> condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were
>> disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty
>> needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's
>> "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar  6 03:57:18 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 19:57:18 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>

OK got it.

 

First sailor uses both condoms.  Sets outer condom aside.  

 

Second sailor inverts inner condom and uses just the one.  Harlot gets two clean surfaces.

 

Third sailor (presumably the lowest ranking) takes first condom without inverting and uses just the one, touching a surface which the harlot has previously contacted with the first sailor.

 

Nobody catches anything new.  Or rather not that particular day.

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 6:45 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

 

My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com>  wrote:

OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...

 

bill w

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com>  wrote:

OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.

 

Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.

 

bill w

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report for duty aboard ship the next day.

 

Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time, so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall order ja?  Even for a professional.

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> >
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

 

Three possibly-cheating solutions:

 

1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.

 

2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.

 

3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.

 

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

_______________________________________________
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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Mar  6 04:25:39 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 20:25:39 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSKYxy2tU45Y=NKwsL40K-=UBvxyqeRwzzNLsp2rVEc-Q@mail.gmail.com>

Wouldn't the first sailor have already dirtied the inner condom's
inner layer by the time the second sailor uses it?  Which means either
the prostitute or the second sailor might get what the first had.

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> OK got it.
>
>
>
> First sailor uses both condoms.  Sets outer condom aside.
>
>
>
> Second sailor inverts inner condom and uses just the one.  Harlot gets two clean surfaces.
>
>
>
> Third sailor (presumably the lowest ranking) takes first condom without inverting and uses just the one, touching a surface which the harlot has previously contacted with the first sailor.
>
>
>
> Nobody catches anything new.  Or rather not that particular day.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 6:45 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
>
>
>
> Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report for duty aboard ship the next day.
>
>
>
> Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time, so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall order ja?  Even for a professional.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> Three possibly-cheating solutions:
>
>
>
> 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
>
>
>
> 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.
>
>
>
> 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat


From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar  6 06:46:46 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 22:46:46 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSKYxy2tU45Y=NKwsL40K-=UBvxyqeRwzzNLsp2rVEc-Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNSKYxy2tU45Y=NKwsL40K-=UBvxyqeRwzzNLsp2rVEc-Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003601d4d3e8$5e9985e0$1bcc91a0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

Wouldn't the first sailor have already dirtied the inner condom's inner layer by the time the second sailor uses it?  Which means either the prostitute or the second sailor might get what the first had...  Adrian


No.  Label the surfaces according to who it touches.

Surface A touches sailor 1
B touches C
D touches harlot.

OK he's done, removes harlot-side condom, sets aside, removes sailor-side condom, sets that aside.

Second sailor uses condom CD puts his stuff in contact with surface C.
C touches sailor 2
D touches harlot.

OK he's done.

Third sailor inverts condom AB

B touches sailor 3
A touches surface C
D touches harlot.

OK he's done, everybody goes home with no new diseases.

spike

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> OK got it.
>
>
>
> First sailor uses both condoms.  Sets outer condom aside.
>
>
>
> Second sailor inverts inner condom and uses just the one.  Harlot gets two clean surfaces.
>
>
>
> Third sailor (presumably the lowest ranking) takes first condom without inverting and uses just the one, touching a surface which the harlot has previously contacted with the first sailor.
>
>
>
> Nobody catches anything new.  Or rather not that particular day.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf 
> Of Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 6:45 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
>
>
>
> Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report for duty aboard ship the next day.
>
>
>
> Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time, so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall order ja?  Even for a professional.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf 
> Of Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> Three possibly-cheating solutions:
>
>
>
> 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
>
>
>
> 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.
>
>
>
> 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar  6 18:39:26 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 12:39:26 -0600
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <003601d4d3e8$5e9985e0$1bcc91a0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNSKYxy2tU45Y=NKwsL40K-=UBvxyqeRwzzNLsp2rVEc-Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003601d4d3e8$5e9985e0$1bcc91a0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYUJfKmjPsGOzGCQYDqmRgzKi4Xs14Qm4Re_wJpmQHnxA@mail.gmail.com>

I just am having a bad day and am not following the answers.

Sailor 1 uses two condoms.
Sailor 2 uses the condom on the outside as used by sailor 1.
Sailor 3 inverts the inner condom as used by Sailor 1 and puts the Sailor 2
condom over it.

The idea is that the prostitute cannot catch her own disease again.
Adrian, I will take your word for it.  Spike I am having trouble following
your diagram, but if you think it compatible with the answer above, well
and good.

You were going to reply to my nuclear power plant post- just reminding you.

bill w

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 12:51 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
> Adrian Tymes
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
> Wouldn't the first sailor have already dirtied the inner condom's inner
> layer by the time the second sailor uses it?  Which means either the
> prostitute or the second sailor might get what the first had...  Adrian
>
>
> No.  Label the surfaces according to who it touches.
>
> Surface A touches sailor 1
> B touches C
> D touches harlot.
>
> OK he's done, removes harlot-side condom, sets aside, removes sailor-side
> condom, sets that aside.
>
> Second sailor uses condom CD puts his stuff in contact with surface C.
> C touches sailor 2
> D touches harlot.
>
> OK he's done.
>
> Third sailor inverts condom AB
>
> B touches sailor 3
> A touches surface C
> D touches harlot.
>
> OK he's done, everybody goes home with no new diseases.
>
> spike
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> >
> > OK got it.
> >
> >
> >
> > First sailor uses both condoms.  Sets outer condom aside.
> >
> >
> >
> > Second sailor inverts inner condom and uses just the one.  Harlot gets
> two clean surfaces.
> >
> >
> >
> > Third sailor (presumably the lowest ranking) takes first condom without
> inverting and uses just the one, touching a surface which the harlot has
> previously contacted with the first sailor.
> >
> >
> >
> > Nobody catches anything new.  Or rather not that particular day.
> >
> >
> >
> > spike
> >
> >
> >
> > From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf
> > Of Adrian Tymes
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 6:45 PM
> > To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> > Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
> >
> >
> >
> > My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:
> >
> > OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise
> the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three
> sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...
> >
> >
> >
> > bill w
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:
> >
> > OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time
> ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
> >
> >
> >
> > Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different
> STDs.
> >
> >
> >
> > bill w
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first
> guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy
> uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report
> for duty aboard ship the next day.
> >
> >
> >
> > Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So
> the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor
> puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses
> outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but
> she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time,
> so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle
> doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall
> order ja?  Even for a professional.
> >
> >
> >
> > spike
> >
> >
> >
> > From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf
> > Of Adrian Tymes
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
> > To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> > Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
> >
> >
> >
> > Three possibly-cheating solutions:
> >
> >
> >
> > 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
> >
> >
> >
> > 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with
> STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.
> >
> >
> >
> > 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used
> condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were
> disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty
> needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's
> "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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 spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar  6 19:08:55 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 11:08:55 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYUJfKmjPsGOzGCQYDqmRgzKi4Xs14Qm4Re_wJpmQHnxA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNSKYxy2tU45Y=NKwsL40K-=UBvxyqeRwzzNLsp2rVEc-Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003601d4d3e8$5e9985e0$1bcc91a0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYUJfKmjPsGOzGCQYDqmRgzKi4Xs14Qm4Re_wJpmQHnxA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <007701d4d450$0bceee50$236ccaf0$@rainier66.com>

Ja, I could have explained that better.

 

Think of the condoms as having two surfaces and label them.  The first sailor wears condom AB inside and CD over that.

 

Once you figure out the harlot has to contact surface D with all three of her employers, it isn?t hard to work out the details where sailor 2 is the only one of the three to use only one condom, contacting surface C.  The third sailor contacts (clean) surface B, while contaminated surface A touches contaminated surface C, and surface D contacts the harlot for the third time.

 

BillW, regarding your nuclear post: nuke power gets more attractive all the time from an strictly environmental point of view.  It doesn?t generate greenhouse gas, there is plenty of fuel, it doesn?t require huge swaths of deforestation or interfere with desert creatures.  Over time, more and more conservationists are warming to the idea.  I am a conservationist myself: it is easy to see the endgame of fossil fuels.  It isn?t because of emitting too much carbon dioxide really.  It is because the global bad guys have too much of it, and over time, charge more and more for it.

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Wednesday, March 6, 2019 10:39 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

 

I just am having a bad day and am not following the answers.

 

Sailor 1 uses two condoms.

Sailor 2 uses the condom on the outside as used by sailor 1.

Sailor 3 inverts the inner condom as used by Sailor 1 and puts the Sailor 2 condom over it.

 

The idea is that the prostitute cannot catch her own disease again.  Adrian, I will take your word for it.  Spike I am having trouble following your diagram, but if you think it compatible with the answer above, well and good.

 

You were going to reply to my nuclear power plant post- just reminding you.

 

bill w

 

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 12:51 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

Wouldn't the first sailor have already dirtied the inner condom's inner layer by the time the second sailor uses it?  Which means either the prostitute or the second sailor might get what the first had...  Adrian


No.  Label the surfaces according to who it touches.

Surface A touches sailor 1
B touches C
D touches harlot.

OK he's done, removes harlot-side condom, sets aside, removes sailor-side condom, sets that aside.

Second sailor uses condom CD puts his stuff in contact with surface C.
C touches sailor 2
D touches harlot.

OK he's done.

Third sailor inverts condom AB

B touches sailor 3
A touches surface C
D touches harlot.

OK he's done, everybody goes home with no new diseases.

spike

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:
>
> OK got it.
>
>
>
> First sailor uses both condoms.  Sets outer condom aside.
>
>
>
> Second sailor inverts inner condom and uses just the one.  Harlot gets two clean surfaces.
>
>
>
> Third sailor (presumably the lowest ranking) takes first condom without inverting and uses just the one, touching a surface which the harlot has previously contacted with the first sailor.
>
>
>
> Nobody catches anything new.  Or rather not that particular day.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf 
> Of Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 6:45 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> >
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
>
>
>
> Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report for duty aboard ship the next day.
>
>
>
> Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time, so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall order ja?  Even for a professional.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf 
> Of Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> >
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> Three possibly-cheating solutions:
>
>
>
> 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
>
>
>
> 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.
>
>
>
> 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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


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

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From avant at sollegro.com  Wed Mar  6 19:14:15 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2019 11:14:15 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
Message-ID: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Spike wrote:

> We are so accustomed to the rich (money rich) having access to the  
> best schools, the best teachers, the best opportunities in general.   
> Now I would argue that the best educational opportunities are  
> online, available to anyone who wants to go in and gobble it up like  
> a ravenous PacMan.  Plenty of the PLP superstars come from the lower  
> socio-economic ranks.  Our local library offers free WiFi, and a  
> ChromeBook can be had for a few bucks used over at the Salvation  
> Army.  The very poor don?t really get rich (yet) but they can get  
> really smart.

The wealth of free knowledge and education available online is a  
wonderful thing from the perspective of maintaining a well-educated  
populace. But from an economic perspective, all it seems to be doing  
lowering the value of technical knowledge. Science knowledge,  
technical skills, and  STEM degrees no longer offer any sense of  
employment or financial security. I know this first hand. The only  
knowledge that matters in the modern job market is knowing the right  
people.

https://alltogether.swe.org/2017/12/is-there-a-shortage-of-stem-jobs-to-stem-graduates-its-complicated/

If you look at the graph in the link above, you will see that there  
are plenty of very well-educated STEM people flipping burgers, serving  
coffee, and performing whatever menial jobs they can find.

The value of a degree from an Ivy League school is not in the what you  
learn. As you have quite well extolled, one can learn that stuff  
online for free. The value of a high-priced private university is the  
getting to know the sons and daughters of wealthy people, since that  
is a far greater indicator of future success than any amount knowledge  
or technical skill. So many people with STEM degrees work shit jobs  
while saddled with enormous college debt, yet chances are nobody who  
knows Mark Zuckerberg personally is unemployed regardless of their  
skill level.

This is what I have observed so YMMV.

Stuart LaForge


From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Mar  6 20:07:07 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 12:07:07 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYUJfKmjPsGOzGCQYDqmRgzKi4Xs14Qm4Re_wJpmQHnxA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNSKYxy2tU45Y=NKwsL40K-=UBvxyqeRwzzNLsp2rVEc-Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003601d4d3e8$5e9985e0$1bcc91a0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYUJfKmjPsGOzGCQYDqmRgzKi4Xs14Qm4Re_wJpmQHnxA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTqbWwSrTxAdM6XxQgwdBUsM3+ZE+8a_UNLxppzYgwi1w@mail.gmail.com>

I confirm that what you laid out is basically Spike's answer.  (And now
that I think about it, I have seen this puzzle in a different form before -
but I wanted to focus on alternate answers.)

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019, 10:43 AM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
wrote:

> I just am having a bad day and am not following the answers.
>
> Sailor 1 uses two condoms.
> Sailor 2 uses the condom on the outside as used by sailor 1.
> Sailor 3 inverts the inner condom as used by Sailor 1 and puts the Sailor
> 2 condom over it.
>
> The idea is that the prostitute cannot catch her own disease again.
> Adrian, I will take your word for it.  Spike I am having trouble following
> your diagram, but if you think it compatible with the answer above, well
> and good.
>
> You were going to reply to my nuclear power plant post- just reminding you.
>
> bill w
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 12:51 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
>> Adrian Tymes
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>>
>> Wouldn't the first sailor have already dirtied the inner condom's inner
>> layer by the time the second sailor uses it?  Which means either the
>> prostitute or the second sailor might get what the first had...  Adrian
>>
>>
>> No.  Label the surfaces according to who it touches.
>>
>> Surface A touches sailor 1
>> B touches C
>> D touches harlot.
>>
>> OK he's done, removes harlot-side condom, sets aside, removes sailor-side
>> condom, sets that aside.
>>
>> Second sailor uses condom CD puts his stuff in contact with surface C.
>> C touches sailor 2
>> D touches harlot.
>>
>> OK he's done.
>>
>> Third sailor inverts condom AB
>>
>> B touches sailor 3
>> A touches surface C
>> D touches harlot.
>>
>> OK he's done, everybody goes home with no new diseases.
>>
>> spike
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > OK got it.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > First sailor uses both condoms.  Sets outer condom aside.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Second sailor inverts inner condom and uses just the one.  Harlot gets
>> two clean surfaces.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Third sailor (presumably the lowest ranking) takes first condom without
>> inverting and uses just the one, touching a surface which the harlot has
>> previously contacted with the first sailor.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Nobody catches anything new.  Or rather not that particular day.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > spike
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf
>> > Of Adrian Tymes
>> > Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 6:45 PM
>> > To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> > Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.
>> >
>> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise
>> the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three
>> sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > bill w
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time
>> ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different
>> STDs.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > bill w
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first
>> guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy
>> uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report
>> for duty aboard ship the next day.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.
>> So the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor
>> puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses
>> outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but
>> she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time,
>> so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle
>> doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall
>> order ja?  Even for a professional.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > spike
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf
>> > Of Adrian Tymes
>> > Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
>> > To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> > Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Three possibly-cheating solutions:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with
>> STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used
>> condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were
>> disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty
>> needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's
>> "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > 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
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > 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
>>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar  6 23:19:43 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 17:19:43 -0600
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <007701d4d450$0bceee50$236ccaf0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNSKYxy2tU45Y=NKwsL40K-=UBvxyqeRwzzNLsp2rVEc-Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003601d4d3e8$5e9985e0$1bcc91a0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYUJfKmjPsGOzGCQYDqmRgzKi4Xs14Qm4Re_wJpmQHnxA@mail.gmail.com>
 <007701d4d450$0bceee50$236ccaf0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZu8+TV0xobuCUnOHByXGkHY17ZHDd+pQ8Rwd0-TNXT1g@mail.gmail.com>

Nuclear waste seems a problem to some.  I say put it in containers and drop
in the deepest part of the ocean where even if it eventually bursts it will
disperse over a large area.

It is unfortunate that our first contact with nuclear things was with
enormous bombs.  Obviously 'nuclear' scares most people, many of whom don't
know that two counties over there's a big plant.

It's like what might happen with  GMOs.  You see the labels on things that
say 'NO GMOs'.  Well, most corn now is from GMO seeds, right?  Soon you
won't be able to find products that don't contain GMOs.  What are people to
think then?  They will be avoiding those products for the same reasons that
people are avoiding measles shots:  pure superstition and no science to
support their superstitions.  Of course some people are still against
floridated water, with no science to back them up.  In the future the
animals from which we get meat, dairy etc.  will likely be GMO.  Of course
in a way they already are, having been bred for centuries to change from
their original form.  (it is true, despite the hoax I wrote about, that
some cows have udders so huge that they do have to wear bras to avoid
dragging the ground)

Trivia question:  why do the nuclear plants need such a gigantic chimney to
let go of water vapor?

bill w

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 1:13 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> Ja, I could have explained that better.
>
>
>
> Think of the condoms as having two surfaces and label them.  The first
> sailor wears condom AB inside and CD over that.
>
>
>
> Once you figure out the harlot has to contact surface D with all three of
> her employers, it isn?t hard to work out the details where sailor 2 is the
> only one of the three to use only one condom, contacting surface C.  The
> third sailor contacts (clean) surface B, while contaminated surface A
> touches contaminated surface C, and surface D contacts the harlot for the
> third time.
>
>
>
> BillW, regarding your nuclear post: nuke power gets more attractive all
> the time from an strictly environmental point of view.  It doesn?t generate
> greenhouse gas, there is plenty of fuel, it doesn?t require huge swaths of
> deforestation or interfere with desert creatures.  Over time, more and more
> conservationists are warming to the idea.  I am a conservationist myself:
> it is easy to see the endgame of fossil fuels.  It isn?t because of
> emitting too much carbon dioxide really.  It is because the global bad guys
> have too much of it, and over time, charge more and more for it.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 6, 2019 10:39 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> I just am having a bad day and am not following the answers.
>
>
>
> Sailor 1 uses two condoms.
>
> Sailor 2 uses the condom on the outside as used by sailor 1.
>
> Sailor 3 inverts the inner condom as used by Sailor 1 and puts the Sailor
> 2 condom over it.
>
>
>
> The idea is that the prostitute cannot catch her own disease again.
> Adrian, I will take your word for it.  Spike I am having trouble following
> your diagram, but if you think it compatible with the answer above, well
> and good.
>
>
>
> You were going to reply to my nuclear power plant post- just reminding you.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 12:51 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
> Adrian Tymes
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
> Wouldn't the first sailor have already dirtied the inner condom's inner
> layer by the time the second sailor uses it?  Which means either the
> prostitute or the second sailor might get what the first had...  Adrian
>
>
> No.  Label the surfaces according to who it touches.
>
> Surface A touches sailor 1
> B touches C
> D touches harlot.
>
> OK he's done, removes harlot-side condom, sets aside, removes sailor-side
> condom, sets that aside.
>
> Second sailor uses condom CD puts his stuff in contact with surface C.
> C touches sailor 2
> D touches harlot.
>
> OK he's done.
>
> Third sailor inverts condom AB
>
> B touches sailor 3
> A touches surface C
> D touches harlot.
>
> OK he's done, everybody goes home with no new diseases.
>
> spike
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> >
> > OK got it.
> >
> >
> >
> > First sailor uses both condoms.  Sets outer condom aside.
> >
> >
> >
> > Second sailor inverts inner condom and uses just the one.  Harlot gets
> two clean surfaces.
> >
> >
> >
> > Third sailor (presumably the lowest ranking) takes first condom without
> inverting and uses just the one, touching a surface which the harlot has
> previously contacted with the first sailor.
> >
> >
> >
> > Nobody catches anything new.  Or rather not that particular day.
> >
> >
> >
> > spike
> >
> >
> >
> > From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf
> > Of Adrian Tymes
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 6:45 PM
> > To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> > Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
> >
> >
> >
> > My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:
> >
> > OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise
> the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three
> sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...
> >
> >
> >
> > bill w
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:
> >
> > OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time
> ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
> >
> >
> >
> > Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different
> STDs.
> >
> >
> >
> > bill w
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first
> guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy
> uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report
> for duty aboard ship the next day.
> >
> >
> >
> > Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So
> the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor
> puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses
> outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but
> she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time,
> so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle
> doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall
> order ja?  Even for a professional.
> >
> >
> >
> > spike
> >
> >
> >
> > From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf
> > Of Adrian Tymes
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
> > To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> > Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
> >
> >
> >
> > Three possibly-cheating solutions:
> >
> >
> >
> > 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
> >
> >
> >
> > 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with
> STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.
> >
> >
> >
> > 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used
> condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were
> disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty
> needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's
> "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar  6 23:21:39 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 17:21:39 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>

You can include doctors of philosophy, psychology, sociology and others in
your thinking, as many of them are cab drivers and burger flippers, too.
It pays grad schools to graduate as many as they can and not tell their
students about the job markets.  bill w

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 1:25 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> Spike wrote:
>
> > We are so accustomed to the rich (money rich) having access to the
> > best schools, the best teachers, the best opportunities in general.
> > Now I would argue that the best educational opportunities are
> > online, available to anyone who wants to go in and gobble it up like
> > a ravenous PacMan.  Plenty of the PLP superstars come from the lower
> > socio-economic ranks.  Our local library offers free WiFi, and a
> > ChromeBook can be had for a few bucks used over at the Salvation
> > Army.  The very poor don?t really get rich (yet) but they can get
> > really smart.
>
> The wealth of free knowledge and education available online is a
> wonderful thing from the perspective of maintaining a well-educated
> populace. But from an economic perspective, all it seems to be doing
> lowering the value of technical knowledge. Science knowledge,
> technical skills, and  STEM degrees no longer offer any sense of
> employment or financial security. I know this first hand. The only
> knowledge that matters in the modern job market is knowing the right
> people.
>
>
> https://alltogether.swe.org/2017/12/is-there-a-shortage-of-stem-jobs-to-stem-graduates-its-complicated/
>
> If you look at the graph in the link above, you will see that there
> are plenty of very well-educated STEM people flipping burgers, serving
> coffee, and performing whatever menial jobs they can find.
>
> The value of a degree from an Ivy League school is not in the what you
> learn. As you have quite well extolled, one can learn that stuff
> online for free. The value of a high-priced private university is the
> getting to know the sons and daughters of wealthy people, since that
> is a far greater indicator of future success than any amount knowledge
> or technical skill. So many people with STEM degrees work shit jobs
> while saddled with enormous college debt, yet chances are nobody who
> knows Mark Zuckerberg personally is unemployed regardless of their
> skill level.
>
> This is what I have observed so YMMV.
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar  6 23:49:45 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 15:49:45 -0800
Subject: [ExI] puzzle III
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZu8+TV0xobuCUnOHByXGkHY17ZHDd+pQ8Rwd0-TNXT1g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZAD8ET=an9fGABpW18v4+6srvzD+DQP3JZxeaHKy9XAA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSOrogD-3-jjJ-ziep2pWnP_+26qR2OTK8nx_fKVMoR0g@mail.gmail.com>
 <006701d4d3a3$c8a8c260$59fa4720$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbfENjf4R2kV0yZjzNvyZPHU2HXZpcTWBUeh2ni=VpoyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSkXwX16sHauTsS7a0UYehvZj=dSoeRHq2RZJjvmmtPfQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001601d4d3d0$b1d74340$1585c9c0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNSKYxy2tU45Y=NKwsL40K-=UBvxyqeRwzzNLsp2rVEc-Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003601d4d3e8$5e9985e0$1bcc91a0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYUJfKmjPsGOzGCQYDqmRgzKi4Xs14Qm4Re_wJpmQHnxA@mail.gmail.com>
 <007701d4d450$0bceee50$236ccaf0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZu8+TV0xobuCUnOHByXGkHY17ZHDd+pQ8Rwd0-TNXT1g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <009b01d4d477$474ca8b0$d5e5fa10$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

 

>?Nuclear waste seems a problem to some.  I say put it in containers and drop in the deepest part of the ocean where even if it eventually bursts it will disperse over a large area?

 

BillW, the reason this isn?t done now is not because it isn?t safe but rather because nuclear waste still contains plenty of energy.  If we drop it into the sea, it is too hard to retrieve once we figure out an economically feasible way to do it.

 

>?It is unfortunate that our first contact with nuclear things was with enormous bombs?

 

Ja that and all the corny Sci-Fi from the 40s and 50s of radioactive waste in the sea causing enormous creatures to emerge, looking for cities to devour.

 

>?  Obviously 'nuclear' scares most people, many of whom don't know that two counties over there's a big plant?

 

It is surprising how few people realize that nuclear power already supplies 20-ish percent of our demand.

 

>?Trivia question:  why do the nuclear plants need such a gigantic chimney to let go of water vapor?

 

bill w

 

This isn?t question at all, but rather a perfectly reasonable engineering question.

 

Some traditional power plants use that kind of cooling system.  That iconic hourglass shape takes advantage of physics.  The boiler (can be coal fired, natural gas, or nuclear) boils and superheats water into steam, the steam turns a turbine generating power, then you need to condense the water vapor back into liquid water in order to compress it and send it back to the boiler.  It takes a lotta lotta heat transfer to get the steam back to water.

 

Sooo? condenser coils inside that big tower, water is sprayed on the condensers, that water turns to steam and creates those big puffy white clouds that come out of the tower, and as those puffy white clouds come out the top, it draws in cool air from the bottom, which rises up, encounters hot wet condenser coils, up it goes.

 

The hourglass tower is expensive, but it is highly efficient.

 

spike

 

 

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 1:13 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

Ja, I could have explained that better.

 

Think of the condoms as having two surfaces and label them.  The first sailor wears condom AB inside and CD over that.

 

Once you figure out the harlot has to contact surface D with all three of her employers, it isn?t hard to work out the details where sailor 2 is the only one of the three to use only one condom, contacting surface C.  The third sailor contacts (clean) surface B, while contaminated surface A touches contaminated surface C, and surface D contacts the harlot for the third time.

 

BillW, regarding your nuclear post: nuke power gets more attractive all the time from an strictly environmental point of view.  It doesn?t generate greenhouse gas, there is plenty of fuel, it doesn?t require huge swaths of deforestation or interfere with desert creatures.  Over time, more and more conservationists are warming to the idea.  I am a conservationist myself: it is easy to see the endgame of fossil fuels.  It isn?t because of emitting too much carbon dioxide really.  It is because the global bad guys have too much of it, and over time, charge more and more for it.

 

spike

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Wednesday, March 6, 2019 10:39 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> >
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

 

I just am having a bad day and am not following the answers.

 

Sailor 1 uses two condoms.

Sailor 2 uses the condom on the outside as used by sailor 1.

Sailor 3 inverts the inner condom as used by Sailor 1 and puts the Sailor 2 condom over it.

 

The idea is that the prostitute cannot catch her own disease again.  Adrian, I will take your word for it.  Spike I am having trouble following your diagram, but if you think it compatible with the answer above, well and good.

 

You were going to reply to my nuclear power plant post- just reminding you.

 

bill w

 

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 12:51 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III

Wouldn't the first sailor have already dirtied the inner condom's inner layer by the time the second sailor uses it?  Which means either the prostitute or the second sailor might get what the first had...  Adrian


No.  Label the surfaces according to who it touches.

Surface A touches sailor 1
B touches C
D touches harlot.

OK he's done, removes harlot-side condom, sets aside, removes sailor-side condom, sets that aside.

Second sailor uses condom CD puts his stuff in contact with surface C.
C touches sailor 2
D touches harlot.

OK he's done.

Third sailor inverts condom AB

B touches sailor 3
A touches surface C
D touches harlot.

OK he's done, everybody goes home with no new diseases.

spike

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:01 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:
>
> OK got it.
>
>
>
> First sailor uses both condoms.  Sets outer condom aside.
>
>
>
> Second sailor inverts inner condom and uses just the one.  Harlot gets two clean surfaces.
>
>
>
> Third sailor (presumably the lowest ranking) takes first condom without inverting and uses just the one, touching a surface which the harlot has previously contacted with the first sailor.
>
>
>
> Nobody catches anything new.  Or rather not that particular day.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf 
> Of Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 6:45 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> >
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> My second and third solutions still work with that clarification.
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:23 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> OK you cheaters, as inventive as you are (and I am impressed), revise the puzzle to require:  female prostitute; sailors all male; all three sailors have sex with the woman.  Four different STDs.  Hint available...
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> OK, I struck out with that puzzle.  Here's one I ran across a long time ago, so you might have heard it.  If not, let me know.
>
>
>
> Three sailors and one prostitute and two condoms.  All have different STDs.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> One of the sailors is also the prostitute (side business.)  They first guy uses the first condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, third guy uses second condom to do the second guy, pays him or her, all three report for duty aboard ship the next day.
>
>
>
> Alternate solution:  all three sailors are female and whore is male.  So the first sailor puts a condom on him, does him, pays him, second sailor puts second condom over first, does him, pays him, third sailor reverses outer condom which would have exposed her to the first sailor?s disease but she gets away uninfected because the whore can?t get it going a third time, so she doesn?t pay him and saves money at the same time.  The puzzle doesn?t actually require that all three sailors get laid.  Three is a tall order ja?  Even for a professional.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf 
> Of Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:34 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> >
> Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle III
>
>
>
> Three possibly-cheating solutions:
>
>
>
> 1) They never met.  All 6 got their STDs from different sources.
>
>
>
> 2) Not all STDs transmit at 100%.  It is possible for two people with STDs to have sex and not give each other what they got.
>
>
>
> 3) "All" does not include the condoms.  Sailors 1 & 2 had STDs, used condoms, and did not transmit.  The prostitute and sailor 3 were disease-free when they had sex sans condom.  Sailor 3 then used a dirty needle or otherwise got a STD from a non-sexual source.  The prostitute's "D" is pregnancy, specifically sailor 3's child.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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


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

_______________________________________________
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Wed Mar  6 23:56:05 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 15:56:05 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>

I?m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan?s on education:

https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html

Or have I missed it? The TL;DR rundown of his book is this: education is mostly signaling. Degree inflation is mainly not increasing worker skills or even detecting talent, but merely an expansive (and, therefore, mostly wasteful) signal. Think of the analogy with buying an expansive engagement ring. According to Caplan, this best explain degree ? why the BA and BS degrees have become the new high school diploma.

He also responds to other theories and even other purposes to education, such as having an informed citizenry. On all these, he shows that the data doesn?t much fit. For instance, with regard to an informed citizenry, the data seems to show few students recall much of their civics and history lessons. They seem to memorize enough to pass the test and then promptly forget this stuff. Which is kind of signaling works: the goal is to signal ? not to retain or use what?s learned.)

And, yes, he does discuss how people can basically pursue knowledge and skills online and outside of schooling or degrees. (Of course, a problem for employers is a signal tends to be cheaper for them than, say, extensively confirming someone has independently mastered some skill or domain.)

Comments? 

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst/


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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 00:10:52 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 16:10:52 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <14A7F04F-185D-4DBA-A4D4-9B209D22945C@gmail.com>

On Mar 6, 2019, at 3:21 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> You can include doctors of philosophy, psychology, sociology and others in your thinking, as many of them are cab drivers and burger flippers, too.  It pays grad schools to graduate as many as they can and not tell their students about the job markets.  bill w

The few philosophy degree holders I know actually tend to work in technology. Of course, they gave undergrad degrees. The few PhDs in philosophy I do know either have jobs in academia ? as professors of philosophy or related fields ? or have some way above minimum wage jobs. I don?t know any burger flippers with PhDs. I?m sure there are some out there. (The only PhDs in psychology I know are either professors or working in research or, in one case, retired from academia.) This is, of course, anecdotal....

But I believe most PhDs end up being employed in academia ? more than half percentage-wise, if memory serves. That would seem to mean that the joke about driving a cab or flip burgers isn?t representative. I imagine it wouldn?t be because the PhD track involves much more effort, so it would tend to weed out those interested merely in signaling or those who aren?t as focused on, say, going into research. (In my work life, which is perhaps shorter than most here, I?ve rarely run across PhDs anyplace I?ve worked who weren?t being paid well.) 

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 00:20:07 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 18:20:07 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbZFSi-3tpbrZ-DqEJdbXOPERg99FUfUgQC6YMHVdsFOQ@mail.gmail.com>

Most things are not forgotten that are learned in school, but you may have
to use more sensitive tests.  For example, who was that guy who wrote about
Walden pond?  If asked like that, some would not be able to come up with
the answer, but if asked in a multiple choice format most would know right
away.

And anyhow, it's not just how much you know that education tries to instill
in people, it's the ability to learn them that is revealed in schools.
Also, going a long way in school is a good test of one's ability to do dull
work, get along with people and bosses (the teachers).  Boot camp is not
about learning to dig holes and then fill them up - it's about learning to
obey orders without question (but not without griping!).

Yes, we are shooting ourselves in the foot by hanging huge debts on our
graduates and then sending them off to drive cabs.

bill w

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 6:13 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I?m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan?s on education:
>
> https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html
>
> Or have I missed it? The TL;DR rundown of his book is this: education is
> mostly signaling. Degree inflation is mainly not increasing worker skills
> or even detecting talent, but merely an expansive (and, therefore, mostly
> wasteful) signal. Think of the analogy with buying an expansive engagement
> ring. According to Caplan, this best explain degree ? why the BA and BS
> degrees have become the new high school diploma.
>
> He also responds to other theories and even other purposes to education,
> such as having an informed citizenry. On all these, he shows that the data
> doesn?t much fit. For instance, with regard to an informed citizenry, the
> data seems to show few students recall much of their civics and history
> lessons. They seem to memorize enough to pass the test and then promptly
> forget this stuff. Which is kind of signaling works: the goal is to signal
> ? not to retain or use what?s learned.)
>
> And, yes, he does discuss how people can basically pursue knowledge and
> skills online and outside of schooling or degrees. (Of course, a problem
> for employers is a signal tends to be cheaper for them than, say,
> extensively confirming someone has independently mastered some skill or
> domain.)
>
> Comments?
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my Kindle books at:
>
> http://author.to/DanUst/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar  7 00:37:01 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 16:37:01 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <002301d4d47d$e1faaf50$a5f00df0$@rainier66.com>

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan
Sent: Wednesday, March 6, 2019 3:56 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] big rip in education

 

I?m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan?s on education:

 

https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html

 

Or have I missed it?...Dan

 

 

We are living in times when most bricks and mortar retailing is being swept away by online sales.  This has been foreseen for some time: online sales are lower cost and far more efficient.  It takes more effort to run a physical-item store.  A colleague mapped out the future in 1994, right when HTML standards were being established.  He saw it all, 25 years ago.

 

Now we are seeing a shift in traditional education.  If we think of education as a means to a better job (as plenty of us do) then it makes more sense to collect a pile of certifications in specific narrow areas of expertise.  Old timers may recall Harvey Newstrom promoting the argument that this was the future of technical education, 15 or more years ago.  Remember the alphabet soup he strung after his name.  Those were his micro-degrees and certifications.  (Whatever the heck happened to Harvey Newstrom?  Anyone here keeping up with him?  If not I will see if I can find him and get him to drop in.)

 

spike

 

 

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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Mar  7 01:41:14 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2019 17:41:14 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
Message-ID: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


This is unconstitutional. Trump can cancel his predecessor's executive  
order but he cannot "revoke" a law that has been been passed by both  
houses and signed into law by the previous president. Revocation is  
not even a thing in the Constitution. Only by 51% of both houses can a  
law be created or repealed. Trump must be smoking crack.

https://twitter.com/stableford/status/1103408113623789568/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1103408113623789568&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs.yimg.com%2Fos%2Fyc%2Fhtml%2Fembed-iframe-min.2d7621e2.html

Stuart LaForge



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 01:42:41 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 19:42:41 -0600
Subject: [ExI] what you have been waiting for, John
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbS+TM6FtbFsh9osf8DU0VEAH31+jUd_Fi4GF-XhoORfg@mail.gmail.com>

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201812/complete-psychological-analysis-trumps-support?fbclid=IwAR0XYPML-5bYHS7-yLRw9JF0MV3v7Nr5jRxbNRVSODiwIplx-jQLltUkAaU

I of course cannot vouch for all the studies here. I read over them and
found most to be reasonable and likely valid.  But to really understand
these studies, you would have to look at each one, particularly looking at
the number of Ss and who they were and where they were from, and whether
any reliability data exist as well as validation from other studies.  As a
start.  bill w
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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Mar  7 02:20:03 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2019 18:20:03 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <26270035.684142.1551920980461@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
 <26270035.684142.1551920980461@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190306182003.Horde.NRjNvWiWAcW5DRA15eYdoYr@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Dan Ust wrote:

>  I?m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan?s on education:
> https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html
> Or have I missed it? The TL;DR rundown of his book is this:  
> education is mostly signaling. Degree inflation is mainly not  
> increasing worker skills or even detecting talent, but merely an  
> expansive (and, therefore, mostly wasteful) signal. Think of the  
> analogy with buying an expansive engagement ring. According to  
> Caplan, this best explain degree ? why the BA and BS degrees have  
> become the new high school diploma.

It is a signal but that is not all it is. And as a signal it is not  
tremendously informative. Masters degrees and PhD.s were included in  
the data that I linked to. We have a large surplus degree bearers at  
all levels.

> He also responds to other theories and even other purposes to  
> education, such as having an informed citizenry. On all these, he  
> shows that the data doesn?t much fit. For instance, with regard to  
> an informed citizenry, the data seems to show few students recall  
> much of their civics and history lessons. They seem to memorize  
> enough to pass the test and then promptly forget this stuff. Which  
> is kind of signaling works: the goal is to signal ? not to retain or  
> use what?s learned.)

But so much of what is learned in the physical sciences is so  
practically useful even if it is redundant to a service provided  
cheaply enough by the market that the learner need not practice it.  
Nonetheless a great deal is retained. For example take chemistry. It  
might be cost effective for me to buy batteries somewhere for example.  
But should civilization fall, my knowledge of chemistry allows me to  
construct my own if necessary and you can't put a price on knowledge  
like that. So in a sense, I am saying that the redundancy of technical  
skills and knowledge is itself useful to civilization as a whole as it  
were.


> And, yes, he does discuss how people can basically pursue knowledge  
> and skills online and outside of schooling or degrees. (Of course, a  
> problem for employers is a signal tends to be cheaper for them than,  
> say, extensively confirming someone has independently mastered some  
> skill or domain.)
> Comments??

If a signal of competency in a specialty takes 3 to 5 years and tens  
of thousands of dollars to generate while demand can shift with the  
wind, it is a poor signal. It would make more sense to allow people to  
switch industries simply by passing competency tests. Also, like I  
said, some of the stuff you learn at school or wherever else is  
inherently valuable long after you pass the exam.

Stuart LaForge


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 03:36:43 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 22:36:43 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 8:47 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> *This is unconstitutional. Trump can cancel his predecessor's executive
> order but he cannot "revoke" a law that has been been passed by both
> houses and signed into law by the previous president.*



That's small potatoes, just imagine what Trump will do the day after the
2020 election if he finds out he's lost! Once he's out of office Trump will
likely face criminal prosecution for one or more of his many scandals, so
from his point of view the solution is obvious;  declare the election null
and void, lock up his political opponent who won, and justify it all with a
fiery speech about how the election was stolen by liberal godless gay
Mexicans employed by the Democrats.

 I don't know if he could get away with it but  I sure don't think Trump
would refrain from doing so because he thought it would be immoral or bad
for the country, and  Republicans in congress might make tut tut sounds but
I don't think they would really fight him over it if they though it would
let them stay in power too. The one thing that gives me hope is that
becoming a dictator takes brains and Trump doesn't have much of that.

John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar  7 04:50:42 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 20:50:42 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark



>?declare the election null and void, lock up his political opponent who won ?

 

US presidents don?t have the power to do that.  That?s why it has never happened.  

 

>?and justify it all with a fiery speech? John K Clarke

 

He could make fiery speeches.  POTUSes can?t get someone arrested.

 

spike

 

 

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From interzone at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 04:58:56 2019
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 23:58:56 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH9fqQwaPC07GK21ZwRaLQb7ZZvV+v4-u2OZ5g48BWuKnw@mail.gmail.com>

The tweet you linked cuts off the 2nd half of the executive order.  It does
not attempt to overturn the law referenced, just reverses the previous
Obama one.

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019, 8:43 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

>
> This is unconstitutional. Trump can cancel his predecessor's executive
> order but he cannot "revoke" a law that has been been passed by both
> houses and signed into law by the previous president. Revocation is
> not even a thing in the Constitution. Only by 51% of both houses can a
> law be created or repealed. Trump must be smoking crack.
>
>
> https://twitter.com/stableford/status/1103408113623789568/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1103408113623789568&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs.yimg.com%2Fos%2Fyc%2Fhtml%2Fembed-iframe-min.2d7621e2.html
>
> 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  Thu Mar  7 05:48:12 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2019 21:48:12 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
Message-ID: <20190306214812.Horde.jD0x1krULrG0jmYvGnZ3fv5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Here is the whole page, Dylan.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1AXzjoVsAALb6v.png:large

It is so poorly written as to kind of hard to parse but my  
interpretation is that he is he is trying to "revoke" everything  
listed. In part A he revokes the executive order. But in parts b and  
c, he is trying to revoke sections 1057 and 1082 of the National  
Defense Authorization Act of 2018 & 2019.

Stuart LaForge





From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 06:38:03 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 22:38:03 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <20190306214812.Horde.jD0x1krULrG0jmYvGnZ3fv5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190306214812.Horde.jD0x1krULrG0jmYvGnZ3fv5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQ19U0EiV=U2SRYEyDdroKhrrqU1TJFgeiXfvJ2_VuaNQ@mail.gmail.com>

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-revocation-reporting-requirement/

Sheesh, go get the source.

He's only revoking the executive order.  Not sure why he's citing the
laws, other than perhaps to say, "these laws already mandate enough;
I'm revoking the EO that adds an additional requirement to the law".

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 9:53 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:
>
> Here is the whole page, Dylan.
>
> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1AXzjoVsAALb6v.png:large
>
> It is so poorly written as to kind of hard to parse but my
> interpretation is that he is he is trying to "revoke" everything
> listed. In part A he revokes the executive order. But in parts b and
> c, he is trying to revoke sections 1057 and 1082 of the National
> Defense Authorization Act of 2018 & 2019.
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 06:45:22 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2019 22:45:22 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNS_ORmxmX-ECq-hC-JLZC6bwajm5R9OnY7N8V0frShGQQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 8:54 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
> >?declare the election null and void, lock up his political opponent who won ?
> US presidents don?t have the power to do that.  That?s why it has never happened.

That's not the suggestion.  The suggestion is that he would say it,
and expect his opinion to be enforced by the rest of the government -
and that enough of the government would do so, that that would
effectively become legal, regardless of what the laws actually say.

> >?and justify it all with a fiery speech? John K Clarke
> He could make fiery speeches.  POTUSes can?t get someone arrested.

Yeah they can.  If the president says he has cause to believe that a
given person is a terrorist, but can't give details in public because
it's classified, any cop can claim that as probable cause and arrest
said person.  Even Trump (probably) knows this much, and thus could
say it with the intent of causing said person to be arrested.


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 14:30:03 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 09:30:03 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1C3TYaQX-v9fpf26hxsDexJ186ATm7FTmcRCT2m=cHog@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 11:56 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:


> *>?*declare the election null and void, lock up his political opponent who
>> won
>
>

*> US presidents don?t have the power to do that.*
>

I know, but US dictators do.

> *He could make fiery speeches.  POTUSes can?t get someone arrested.*
>

I know, but US dictators can. You keep saying Trump can not do stuff
because a piece of paper called the Constitution says its against the
rules, but a piece of paper can't stop him only people can, so who exactly
are these people? The Republicans in congress? I don't think so!  The
Supreme Court? Trump has expressed his admiration of President Andrew
Jackson and Jackson's most famous quote is "The Supreme Court has made its
decision now let them enforce it".

John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar  7 15:02:55 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 07:02:55 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1C3TYaQX-v9fpf26hxsDexJ186ATm7FTmcRCT2m=cHog@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1C3TYaQX-v9fpf26hxsDexJ186ATm7FTmcRCT2m=cHog@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004c01d4d4f6$d8c92050$8a5b60f0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2019 6:30 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Presidential overstep

 

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 11:56 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

>?declare the election null and void, lock up his political opponent who won 

 

> US presidents don?t have the power to do that.

 

I know, but US dictators do. ?

 

Agreed, which is why we don?t have one and why the constitution is written to prevent one.

 

> He could make fiery speeches.  POTUSes can?t get someone arrested.

 

>?I know, but US dictators can. You keep saying Trump can not do stuff because a piece of paper called the Constitution says its against the rules?

 

That?s right.  The constitution is what gives a POTUS any authority at all.  

 

Regarding dictators, it has been tried, in our times.  Nixon tried to get his own guys, who report directly to him, to fire a special prosecutor.  They refused, arguing that it was an illegal order.

 

A POTUS can?t get someone arrested, but they could have someone killed.  It wouldn?t be legal of course.  A presidential candidate in 2016 suggested murdering Julian Assange with a drone.  No one took it seriously: they didn?t have a drone.  They weren?t in office yet.

 

>? Trump has expressed his admiration of President Andrew Jackson and Jackson's most famous quote is "The Supreme Court has made its decision now let them enforce it".  John K Clark

 

 

Jackson didn?t get his way.  But he is an example of one who would have converted the office of POTUS into dictator if he could have.  He could (and did) make fiery speeches.  The office of POTUS isn?t all that powerful, as we are seeing now.  If nothing else, the current POTUS has reduced the power of the office of POTUS, which in turn reduces the power of congress.  All of this is good.

 

John you worry too much me lad.  If you want something to worry about, consider this.  The US government has become completely dependent on a communist government loaning it money just to make normal expenses.  China?s government has the authority to order its people to desist lending money to the US at any time.  If it does, the US has no practical way to raise the difference.  It realizes this, so the federal government has to stand by and watch as China builds islands in international waters, then claims more and more territory in what had been sea lanes.  The US cannot go to war with China over that.  They can?t even pressure the China over that, because it needs China?s money.  Your worrying about a dictator rising during peacetime is distracting you from the real danger the world really is facing.  China is planning to take ownership of a huge swath of the Pacific.  The US can?t do anything about it.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 15:07:49 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 07:07:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Partisan prejudice
Message-ID: <CE91F472-8618-44F6-B325-0033752C8239@gmail.com>

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/us-counties-vary-their-degree-partisan-prejudice/583072/

TL;DR: high correlation between privilege and partisan intolerance likely because the more privileged a person is the less they have to interact with individuals they disagree with... then they tend to stereotype the latter.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 15:24:53 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 07:24:53 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <004c01d4d4f6$d8c92050$8a5b60f0$@rainier66.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1C3TYaQX-v9fpf26hxsDexJ186ATm7FTmcRCT2m=cHog@mail.gmail.com>
 <004c01d4d4f6$d8c92050$8a5b60f0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <DA802F77-34FA-49BD-8C64-5E8BC087F7E0@gmail.com>

On Mar 7, 2019, at 7:02 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> 
> John you worry too much me lad.  If you want something to worry about, consider this.  The US government has become completely dependent on a communist government loaning it money just to make normal expenses.  China?s government has the authority to order its people to desist lending money to the US at any time.  If it does, the US has no practical way to raise the difference.

There?s s saying that might apply here: ?If you owe the bank one hundred dollars that's your problem. If you owe the bank one hundred million dollars, that's the bank's problem.? 

>   It realizes this, so the federal government has to stand by and watch as China builds islands in international waters, then claims more and more territory in what had been sea lanes.  The US cannot go to war with China over that.  They can?t even pressure the China over that, because it needs China?s money.  Your worrying about a dictator rising during peacetime is distracting you from the real danger the world really is facing. China is planning to take ownership of a huge swath of the Pacific. The US can?t do anything about it.

You make it sound as if China is churning out these islands all over ? say just South of the Aleutians, off the coast of South America, in the area between Midway and Hawaii, around Japan and the Coral Sea. Do you believe China is a threat or a menace? ;) 

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst/
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From sparge at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 15:28:48 2019
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 10:28:48 -0500
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dvfdDxkHuM9pK_N6162tzNy8J0ti_fApGn_rJTg+BmnA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 7:13 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I?m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan?s on education:
>
> https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html
>
> Or have I missed it? The TL;DR rundown of his book is this: education is
> mostly signaling. Degree inflation is mainly not increasing worker skills
> or even detecting talent, but merely an expansive (and, therefore, mostly
> wasteful) signal. Think of the analogy with buying an expansive engagement
> ring. According to Caplan, this best explain degree ? why the BA and BS
> degrees have become the new high school diploma.
>

Yep. And higher education is big money.

He also responds to other theories and even other purposes to education,
> such as having an informed citizenry. On all these, he shows that the data
> doesn?t much fit. For instance, with regard to an informed citizenry, the
> data seems to show few students recall much of their civics and history
> lessons. They seem to memorize enough to pass the test and then promptly
> forget this stuff. Which is kind of signaling works: the goal is to signal
> ? not to retain or use what?s learned.)
>

I think it's also about indoctrination and keeping the masses easily
controlled. Education *should* be about more than just acquiring the skills
needed to perform a job...such as the skills needed to perform living a
good life.

And, yes, he does discuss how people can basically pursue knowledge and
> skills online and outside of schooling or degrees. (Of course, a problem
> for employers is a signal tends to be cheaper for them than, say,
> extensively confirming someone has independently mastered some skill or
> domain.)
>

I think independent skills testing/certification is the future.

-Dave
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar  7 15:52:06 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 07:52:06 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <DA802F77-34FA-49BD-8C64-5E8BC087F7E0@gmail.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <007401d4d4fd$b7df34e0$279d9ea0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan



 

 

>>?China?s government has the authority to order its people to desist lending money to the US at any time.  If it does, the US has no practical way to raise the difference.

 

>?There?s s saying that might apply here: ?If you owe the bank one hundred dollars that's your problem. If you owe the bank one hundred million dollars, that's the bank's problem.? 

 

Eh, it isn?t so much what the US owes the bank.  It?s that the US is dependent on that bank continuing to issue new credit cards at an increasing rate, into the future as far as we can see.  The US government has no practical way to significantly increase its revenue and it shows little interest in cutting its expenses.





>>? China is planning to take ownership of a huge swath of the Pacific. The US can?t do anything about it?

 

>?You make it sound as if China is churning out these islands all over ? ?. Do you believe China is a threat or a menace? ;) 

Regards, Dan

   

Dan the real threat isn?t even the islands.  It?s the threat of cutting off the lending.  The US has shown that it cannot live on its income.

 

All this flapping around, the US government at war with itself is distracting from the real threat.

 

spike

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 16:02:38 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 10:02:38 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <DA802F77-34FA-49BD-8C64-5E8BC087F7E0@gmail.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1C3TYaQX-v9fpf26hxsDexJ186ATm7FTmcRCT2m=cHog@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbEnQNLxf7tPK0Xt-prPy+raUZJjrzsgtbBw59zzuF=Dg@mail.gmail.com>

 Do you believe China is a threat or a menace? ;)
Dan

Well, look what humans have done ever since history began:  ran around
raping and killing and stealing and taking over other countries.  Who
hasn't done it?  Only the powerless.  Every country, Britain, USA, FRance,
Netherlands, etc. has done these things, enslaving people if they need
hands.  Why should China be any different?  Of course they are a threat to
take over.  I just hope they don't go running around the world starting
stupid wars like we have done. (A lot of what they have done is helping
people, like building bridges for countries in Africa - long term thinking,
that).

 Do you know that Baghdad still doesn't have full electricity because of
the 'shock and awe' done when we invaded?  We just leave a mess behind for
someone else to deal with, as we are moving on to other stupid engagements
and piling up more debt from military actions.  Just what have we gained
from the wars since before Vietnam?  Debt, mostly.  No friends, though some
have forgiven us and now we trade with them.

bill w

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 9:39 AM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 7, 2019, at 7:02 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com>
> wrote:
>
> John you worry too much me lad.  If you want something to worry about,
> consider this.  The US government has become completely dependent on a
> communist government loaning it money just to make normal expenses.
> China?s government has the authority to order its people to desist lending
> money to the US at any time.  If it does, the US has no practical way to
> raise the difference.
>
>
> There?s s saying that might apply here: ?If you owe the bank one hundred
> dollars that's your problem. If you owe the bank one hundred million
> dollars, that's the bank's problem.?
>
>   It realizes this, so the federal government has to stand by and watch as
> China builds islands in international waters, then claims more and more
> territory in what had been sea lanes.  The US cannot go to war with China
> over that.  They can?t even pressure the China over that, because it needs
> China?s money.  Your worrying about a dictator rising during peacetime is
> distracting you from the real danger the world really is facing. China is
> planning to take ownership of a huge swath of the Pacific. The US can?t do
> anything about it.
>
>
> You make it sound as if China is churning out these islands all over ? say
> just South of the Aleutians, off the coast of South America, in the area
> between Midway and Hawaii, around Japan and the Coral Sea. Do you believe
> China is a threat or a menace? ;)
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my Kindle books at:
>
> http://author.to/DanUst/
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Thu Mar  7 16:07:02 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 08:07:02 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dvfdDxkHuM9pK_N6162tzNy8J0ti_fApGn_rJTg+BmnA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dvfdDxkHuM9pK_N6162tzNy8J0ti_fApGn_rJTg+BmnA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8383DBCE-0DA6-4AB3-B7AB-BFEE8D8661A2@gmail.com>

On Mar 7, 2019, at 7:28 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 7:13 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I?m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan?s on education:
>> 
>> https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html
>> 
>> Or have I missed it? The TL;DR rundown of his book is this: education is mostly signaling. Degree inflation is mainly not increasing worker skills or even detecting talent, but merely an expansive (and, therefore, mostly wasteful) signal. Think of the analogy with buying an expansive engagement ring. According to Caplan, this best explain degree ? why the BA and BS degrees have become the new high school diploma.
> 
> Yep. And higher education is big money.

And if he?s right, it?s wasted money from the wider social perspective. In other words, it doesn?t increase overall wealth so much as shift around existing wealth.

>> He also responds to other theories and even other purposes to education, such as having an informed citizenry. On all these, he shows that the data doesn?t much fit. For instance, with regard to an informed citizenry, the data seems to show few students recall much of their civics and history lessons. They seem to memorize enough to pass the test and then promptly forget this stuff. Which is kind of signaling works: the goal is to signal ? not to retain or use what?s learned.)
> 
> I think it's also about indoctrination and keeping the masses easily controlled. Education *should* be about more than just acquiring the skills needed to perform a job...such as the skills needed to perform living a good life.

He addresses both those issues to show that in terms of indoctrination people are more likely to be influenced by their peer group than education. And, in terms of the good life, he believes the data doesn?t show that at all.

He doesn?t say signaling explains it all, but that it explains more, and that these other hypotheses ? indoctrination, human capital, revealing talent, making better citizens, making better (well rounded and cultured) people, etc. seem to explain little. Think of one thought experiment here. Why does a person with a degree do better overall than, say, the person how did as well for 90% of the coursework but didn?t get the degree? In particular, e.g., we don?t see three years of college but no degree getting, say, 75% of the overall income of someone getting the four year degree.

>> And, yes, he does discuss how people can basically pursue knowledge and skills online and outside of schooling or degrees. (Of course, a problem for employers is a signal tends to be cheaper for them than, say, extensively confirming someone has independently mastered some skill or domain.)
> 
> I think independent skills testing/certification is the future. 

It might be, but it?s generally cheaper for employers now to simply go for the person with the degree. The cost of signaling tends to fall on society at large and the signaler rather than the signalee. That kind of drives the process. (Or such is my understanding here.)

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar  7 16:30:07 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 08:30:07 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dvfdDxkHuM9pK_N6162tzNy8J0ti_fApGn_rJTg+BmnA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dvfdDxkHuM9pK_N6162tzNy8J0ti_fApGn_rJTg+BmnA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00cd01d4d503$077085e0$165191a0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dave Sill
Subject: Re: [ExI] big rip in education

 

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 7:13 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com <mailto:danust2012 at gmail.com> > wrote:

I?m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan?s on education:

 

https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html

 

>>? ? why the BA and BS degrees have become the new high school diploma.

 

>?Yep. And higher education is big money?

 

Huge.  Like plenty of other big money endeavors, education is an impacted industry.  It is reacting as impacted industries do.

 

>? Education *should* be about more than just acquiring the skills needed to perform a job...such as the skills needed to perform living a good life?

 

Society is in the process of defining what education is really all about.  If people come out of school knowing all about {insert plenty of the subjects where degrees are still being offered} but not having mastered modern skills and technologies such as how to find reliable information online, how to minimize taxes legally, how to invest and so on, that person lacks life skills and is not ready for prime time.

 

When I was in college, we sometimes encountered liberal arts students (most of the campus was that.)  If (s)he and I compared our curricula, we might comment in unison for the first sentence ?What you are getting here isn?t even higher education.?  Her second sentence would be ?What you are getting here is mere job training.?  My second sentence would be similar, but would lack eloquence, since engineering students are not required to master language skills.  We only make things.  Such as? money.

 

 

>?I think independent skills testing/certification is the future.  -Dave

 

Ja, more employers are recognizing this.  They need people who can develop new products at minimum cost and maximum speed, with little or no need for the skills for which the universities are coaxing students into ruinous debt.  Certification is faster, it is lower cost (much lower) and it goes around the traditional admissions process.  It?s a big win for the usual losers in that process.  It levels the playing field.  Anyone anywhere on the planet can get an excellent technical education, at home.

 

spike

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 16:40:40 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 08:40:40 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbZFSi-3tpbrZ-DqEJdbXOPERg99FUfUgQC6YMHVdsFOQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbZFSi-3tpbrZ-DqEJdbXOPERg99FUfUgQC6YMHVdsFOQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9E74FAAB-CB69-4287-BC0D-B45725FC292E@gmail.com>

> On Mar 6, 2019, at 4:20 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Most things are not forgotten that are learned in school, but you may have to use more sensitive tests.  For example, who was that guy who wrote about Walden pond?  If asked like that, some would not be able to come up with the answer, but if asked in a multiple choice format most would know right away.

I believe Caplan addressed that, but I can?t recall. ;)

> And anyhow, it's not just how much you know that education tries to instill in people, it's the ability to learn them that is revealed in schools.  Also, going a long way in school is a good test of one's ability to do dull work, get along with people and bosses (the teachers).  Boot camp is not about learning to dig holes and then fill them up - it's about learning to obey orders without question (but not without griping!).

Actually, that?s part of his point of how education signaling works: it relays to potential employers that the person is both smart (more or less) and basically confirming to social standards. He maintains that they (potential employers) don?t overall want someone who is really smart but one conform ? or they want someone who will be creative in a limited domain (as in applying to building a better mousetrap not questioning whether mousetrapping is a good idea in the first place).

> Yes, we are shooting ourselves in the foot by hanging huge debts on our graduates and then sending them off to drive cabs.

Caplan advises against lowering the price of higher education because he believes that would only increase degree inflation.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 16:55:23 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 08:55:23 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <007401d4d4fd$b7df34e0$279d9ea0$@rainier66.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
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> On Mar 7, 2019, at 7:52 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan
> >>?China?s government has the authority to order its people to desist lending money to the US at any time.  If it does, the US has no practical way to raise the difference.
>  
> >?There?s s saying that might apply here: ?If you owe the bank one hundred dollars that's your problem. If you owe the bank one hundred million dollars, that's the bank's problem.? 
>  
> Eh, it isn?t so much what the US owes the bank.  It?s that the US is dependent on that bank continuing to issue new credit cards at an increasing rate, into the future as far as we can see.  The US government has no practical way to significantly increase its revenue and it shows little interest in cutting its expenses.

The thing about the Getty quote (well, it?s attributed to him) is that while the bank here can surely stop lending, there?s a strong incentive not to see the debtor go belly up. In the case of China, if it stops lending to the US government it enters a risky area where probably the only certain thing is it won?t be repaid. (Yes, in the long run, it?s a bad strategy, but history abounds with examples of people and entire nations gambling on the long run being long enough away not to matter, no?)

I was also going to bring in the current president?s dealing with banks. He seems to have followed the Getty quote. ;)

> >>? China is planning to take ownership of a huge swath of the Pacific. The US can?t do anything about it?
>  
> >?You make it sound as if China is churning out these islands all over ? ?. Do you believe China is a threat or a menace? ;) 
> 
> Regards, Dan
>    
> Dan the real threat isn?t even the islands.  It?s the threat of cutting off the lending.  The US has shown that it cannot live on its income.

See above. But dig a little deeper. China does hold a lot of US public debt, but it?s still only a fraction ? less than 6% of the whole debt ? according to this:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-who-owns-a-record-2121-trillion-of-us-debt-2018-08-21

Now, sure, that can change. But note Japan holds almost as much. And my uncle pointed out that if we were having this conversation in the 1980s, everyone would be worrying about Japan buying up the US and calling all the shots. What happened? 

> All this flapping around, the US government at war with itself is distracting from the real threat.

When has this ever not been the case? I tend to start with the view that any ruling class (or any state) is more a collection of factions vying with each. Of course, this can go to the extreme of what?s call elite fragmentation, where the ruling class loses cohesion and the result can be civil war, external control (think colonial powers with regard to their colonies), or secession. (I don?t think external control is really an issue for the US. Nor do I believe elite fragmentation has occurred to any degree that would lead to civil war or secession. I believe it?s all hyperbole at this time.) 

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst


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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 16:57:00 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 10:57:00 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <00cd01d4d503$077085e0$165191a0$@rainier66.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dvfdDxkHuM9pK_N6162tzNy8J0ti_fApGn_rJTg+BmnA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00cd01d4d503$077085e0$165191a0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEY6QOk=6Ta0TzWOJFyTNBHxDK=pqw9DZoEsbtjO35vwsA@mail.gmail.com>

 Anyone anywhere on the planet can get an excellent technical education, at
home.

spike


My point of view:  do you remember (maybe I am too old) those report cards
we got in grammar school, where the teacher made some remarks about our
in-class behavior or study habits?  I wonder if that still goes on.  POint
is:  at every level we need reports of what a person can and cannot do, and
that requires better and better psychological tests (which go far beyond
the typical person's thinking about tests, which is to say that they assume
that clinical things are being measured.


What do we see coming out of college?  Degrees a person has.  That's it.
No measure of competence in dealing with others.  No measure of weaknesses
and strengths in their field.  No measure of character.  Of course there
are tests that industry uses to try to measure these things.  (for Spike -
a home-schooled student has no impartial judge to rate their kids on these
things - do you think they maybe are biased?


Improvement in tests and other ratings at all levels would help every
teacher and every student, not to mention those looking to hire the
students.  At present, these tests are minimally used or even absent, and
none of them is perfect, but they do have some minimal validity or industry
would fire their industrial psychologists.


Industry still uses personal interviews, which have repeatedly been shown
to be lousy at predicting job success (Dunning-Kruger effect - bosses are
sure they can tell all sorts of things about a job candidate which studies
show that few can.)


Want to improve education?  Improve ratings and tests.  Put a psychologist
or counselor in every school whose job it is to develop ways of measuring
the students.


bill w

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 10:36 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *Dave Sill
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] big rip in education
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 7:13 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I?m wondering why no one here has discussion Bryan Caplan?s on education:
>
>
>
> https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html
>
>
>
> >>? ? why the BA and BS degrees have become the new high school diploma.
>
>
>
> >?Yep. And higher education is big money?
>
>
>
> Huge.  Like plenty of other big money endeavors, education is an impacted
> industry.  It is reacting as impacted industries do.
>
>
>
> >? Education *should* be about more than just acquiring the skills needed
> to perform a job...such as the skills needed to perform living a good life?
>
>
>
> Society is in the process of defining what education is really all about.
> If people come out of school knowing all about {insert plenty of the
> subjects where degrees are still being offered} but not having mastered
> modern skills and technologies such as how to find reliable information
> online, how to minimize taxes legally, how to invest and so on, that person
> lacks life skills and is not ready for prime time.
>
>
>
> When I was in college, we sometimes encountered liberal arts students
> (most of the campus was that.)  If (s)he and I compared our curricula, we
> might comment in unison for the first sentence ?What you are getting here
> isn?t even higher education.?  Her second sentence would be ?What you are
> getting here is mere job training.?  My second sentence would be similar,
> but would lack eloquence, since engineering students are not required to
> master language skills.  We only make things.  Such as? money.
>
>
>
>
>
> >?I think independent skills testing/certification is the future.  -Dave
>
>
>
> Ja, more employers are recognizing this.  They need people who can develop
> new products at minimum cost and maximum speed, with little or no need for
> the skills for which the universities are coaxing students into ruinous
> debt.  Certification is faster, it is lower cost (much lower) and it goes
> around the traditional admissions process.  It?s a big win for the usual
> losers in that process.  It levels the playing field.  Anyone anywhere on
> the planet can get an excellent technical education, at home.
>
>
>
> 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  Thu Mar  7 16:57:52 2019
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 11:57:52 -0500
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <8383DBCE-0DA6-4AB3-B7AB-BFEE8D8661A2@gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dvfdDxkHuM9pK_N6162tzNy8J0ti_fApGn_rJTg+BmnA@mail.gmail.com>
 <8383DBCE-0DA6-4AB3-B7AB-BFEE8D8661A2@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2ffrG_M=3KAktzD61NXThuimo2ufm7CFS2_1Kv2W9aWJg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 11:26 AM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 7, 2019, at 7:28 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think independent skills testing/certification is the future.
>
> It might be, but it?s generally cheaper for employers now to simply go for
> the person with the degree. The cost of signaling tends to fall on society
> at large and the signaler rather than the signalee. That kind of drives the
> process. (Or such is my understanding here.)
>

 I'm not suggesting employers will pay for candidates to be tested, I think
they'll require applicants to have the certification. This is already de
rigueur for hiring project managers, who almost always have to have their
PMP.

This a win for employers, in general, because attaining a particular degree
doesn't ensure that potential employees have the skills they need to do the
job. It's a win for employees, in general, because they can obtain a
certification much faster and more inexpensively than they can obtain a
degree. Of course lots of professionals (doctors, lawyers, engineers, for
example) already require certification, but those professions are
tightly-controlled by professional organizations that aren't interested in
making it easier to attain those certifications so they have additional
degree requirements on top of the certification testing.

-Dave
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar  7 18:12:37 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 10:12:37 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
Message-ID: <013b01d4d511$59170c30$0b452490$@rainier66.com>

 

 

In our world today, it is not necessary that one have a sensa huma.  But it helps.

 

I had to laugh today.  We bought a washing machine about 5 yrs ago which was the latest thing: it was designed with feedback loops to measure water levels with the goal in mind of conserving water.  Great marketing feature in California, as we were in the depths of a multi-year drought.  There were people accepting the notion that it was all global warming and it would never rain again and all kinds of silly extremism.  The state offered incentives to manufacturers for selling these water-stingy machines.  We bought one, being typical suckers.

 

A coupla years ago, we had a really wet season and the reservoir behind an enormous earthen dam rose quickly.  The Oroville authorities were reluctant to dump the water thru the spillways (because water is valuable stuff (and everybody knew the rains would stop.))  The rains kept coming, and by the time the dam authorities opened up the dam flood gates, it was too dam late, and the water rose to overtop the emergency spillway, which hadn?t been properly maintained because it wasn?t going to be used.  Until it was.  And it failed.  That clapping sound you heard was buttholes slamming shut everywhere in California, for if that dam failed, goodbye town of Oroville and everything downstream, and goodbye water supply for much of California.  

 

It held, and has been repaired.  OK so now we are having another record-breaking wet year.  The Sierras have ski resorts which could not open in years past because there wasn?t enough snow.  This year some of them cannot open because they can?t shovel out the ski lifts which are buried in snow.

 

We didn?t like water-stingy washing machine.  There wasn?t enough control over that feature.  We had loads of clothing where we found places that had never gotten wet.  If it didn?t get wet, it didn?t get clean.  Being a typical geek engineer, I did some calculations on how much we saved by this machine, but I noticed it also uses more power at the expense of using less water.  Well? power is expensive, water is cheap.  These so-called high-efficiency machines save a little water at the expense of using more power (because the cycle lasts longer (which is also a negative.))

 

Sunday the thing conked.  Rather than mess with it, my bride suggested replacing it.  I concurred, so she picked one, didn?t mention further why that one or what she picked.  The lads delivered it about an hour ago.  It is similar to the previous one but with a new feature: it allows one to defeat the water-saving feature.  A big sticker on the top of the machine in inch-tall all-caps proclaims:

 

YOU CAN USE AS MUCH WATER AS YOU WANT.

 

Under that sales pitch:

 

Flexible water features put YOU in control.

 

I had to laugh at our own silliness.  California consumers bought up water-saver washers, now we are buying up washers that give us the option of defeating the water saver feature.

 

spike

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 18:15:31 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 13:15:31 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <004c01d4d4f6$d8c92050$8a5b60f0$@rainier66.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1C3TYaQX-v9fpf26hxsDexJ186ATm7FTmcRCT2m=cHog@mail.gmail.com>
 <004c01d4d4f6$d8c92050$8a5b60f0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv13m-B1-EEhtK0z23suZUY3dpZY8EX0m+5M_Z78T=uWFA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 10:09 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:


> > *The constitution is what gives a POTUS any authority at all. *


A tank is pretty authoritative too and POTUS is The Commander in Chief.


> *> A POTUS can?t get someone arrested, but they could have someone
> killed.  It wouldn?t be legal of course. *


Do you think the current POTUS would hesitate to do something for one
nanosecond because he thought it was illegal or immoral? I don't. The only
thing that would hold him back would be fear it wouldn't work, and given
the fact that he's not very bright it indeed might not work; but with his
huge ego he probably imagines himself to be a more skillful criminal than
he really is and even an unsuccessful coup would be a very bad day.

* > If you want something to worry about, consider this.  The US government
> has become completely dependent on a communist government loaning it money
> just to make normal expenses.  China?s government has the authority to
> order its people to desist lending money to the US at any time.*
>

And if they did that China's economy would go into a depression even deeper
than our own because they are dependent on world trade even more than the
US is. Incidentally just yesterday it was announced that the USA's trade
imbalance hit a all time high record level last year despite of, or rather
because of, Trump's policies. The $1.5 trillion tax cut for the super crazy
ulta rich had to be paid for and that was done  by borrowing, and that
increased interest rates, and that strengthened the dollar, and that made
it easier for the US to buy stuff from China and harder for China to buy
stuff from the USA. Also Trump's high tariffs slowed China's economy
weakening their demand for foreign goods.

America?s Trade Deficit Hits Record $891 Billion
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/us/politics/us-trade-deficit.html>


> *> Your worrying about a dictator rising during peacetime is distracting
> you from the real danger the world really is facing.  China is planning to
> take ownership of a huge swath of the Pacific. *
>

That is worry #942 on my list.

John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 19:07:59 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 13:07:59 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in education
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2ffrG_M=3KAktzD61NXThuimo2ufm7CFS2_1Kv2W9aWJg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306111415.Horde.6aWbmV91fiPBeW5clqfK5fu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAO+xQEa9VWtuQJ+uNxgoc1jduttn1+LRyhQz6sA1ZUyMUT+fqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <46CC3AE1-3651-4A06-85A5-59797628D682@gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dvfdDxkHuM9pK_N6162tzNy8J0ti_fApGn_rJTg+BmnA@mail.gmail.com>
 <8383DBCE-0DA6-4AB3-B7AB-BFEE8D8661A2@gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2ffrG_M=3KAktzD61NXThuimo2ufm7CFS2_1Kv2W9aWJg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEb-MDXa1yN_AuWSCa=Gx4EeCHFyM6p8o5N6xpc2u9sfFw@mail.gmail.com>

You are right.  It used to be that you could get certified as a lawyer just
by passing the state exam that law graduates have to take to be admitted to
the bar.  So, study on your own.

Can't do that anymore.  Law schools leaned on legislatures.

bill w

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 11:35 AM Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 11:26 AM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Mar 7, 2019, at 7:28 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think independent skills testing/certification is the future.
>>
>> It might be, but it?s generally cheaper for employers now to simply go
>> for the person with the degree. The cost of signaling tends to fall on
>> society at large and the signaler rather than the signalee. That kind of
>> drives the process. (Or such is my understanding here.)
>>
>
>  I'm not suggesting employers will pay for candidates to be tested, I
> think they'll require applicants to have the certification. This is already
> de rigueur for hiring project managers, who almost always have to have
> their PMP.
>
> This a win for employers, in general, because attaining a particular
> degree doesn't ensure that potential employees have the skills they need to
> do the job. It's a win for employees, in general, because they can obtain a
> certification much faster and more inexpensively than they can obtain a
> degree. Of course lots of professionals (doctors, lawyers, engineers, for
> example) already require certification, but those professions are
> tightly-controlled by professional organizations that aren't interested in
> making it easier to attain those certifications so they have additional
> degree requirements on top of the certification testing.
>
> -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 interzone at gmail.com  Thu Mar  7 19:45:11 2019
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 14:45:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Presidential overstep
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv13m-B1-EEhtK0z23suZUY3dpZY8EX0m+5M_Z78T=uWFA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190306174114.Horde.Q0YqJvzhPevyQsWtrVkgBbl@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv1F1VrqARJnub1jGm660vbJMBBL=YHMdX2gvKyaidLOXQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <000a01d4d4a1$51fb8bd0$f5f2a370$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1C3TYaQX-v9fpf26hxsDexJ186ATm7FTmcRCT2m=cHog@mail.gmail.com>
 <004c01d4d4f6$d8c92050$8a5b60f0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv13m-B1-EEhtK0z23suZUY3dpZY8EX0m+5M_Z78T=uWFA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH8wY8fLFZP68T9JL_PV4btCPpz4Qzn_+VM=nG4eneE_PQ@mail.gmail.com>

John-

I'm not going to share an opinion on the merits of Trump's policies (or
lack thereof), but this analysis as a root cause of the USD's continued
strength is too simplistic, and not accurate IMO.  Interest rates have not
been rising in the US.  The US 10 year yield has fallen extremely far from
4Q of 2018 forward.

The dollar remains very strong against other currencies for a number of
reasons including there is really no alternative to it right now.  Europe
and China have not participated in the strong economy that has occurred in
the US since Trump took office (I am not implying he is responsible for all
of it, just mentioning the timing) and are arguably already indicating
recession (the weaker nations are already there in Europe).   There remain
very real structural problems in Europe, and their overall economy has been
lukewarm at best.   China has also been struggling in many ways that are
not apparent based on just looking at their GDP numbers.   Energy is cheap
and abundant as an input in the US which is also playing a role.

The US has (temporarily?) decoupled from most of the major other economies
on the world stage, and in relative terms has been very strong compared to
them.

All of these things have created a virtuous cycle in the USD that is
causing it to remain strong against other currencies, and all of this is
without a rise in interest rates on US debt.


On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 1:27 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> The $1.5 trillion tax cut for the super crazy ulta rich had to be paid for
> and that was done  by borrowing, and that increased interest rates, and
> that strengthened the dollar, and that made it easier for the US to buy
> stuff from China and harder for China to buy stuff from the USA.
>
> America?s Trade Deficit Hits Record $891 Billion
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/us/politics/us-trade-deficit.html>
>
>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  8 01:24:59 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2019 17:24:59 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
Message-ID: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>

Heh.

 

As if on cue, an article appears which tells the same story I experienced:

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-inefficiency-of-efficiency-appliance-standards-often-cost-more-than-they-save

 

If anything this understates the case.  These ?high efficiency? washing machines do use more power in exchange for using only a little less water.  If one is up on the highest tier, power is very expensive.

 

Here?s a funny one to along with it.  Until fairly recently, California was in an extended drought.  The voters agreed to a water rate hike to act as an encouragement to save water.  A lot of people took out their lawns and put in low water toilets and such (which are a pain in themselves.)  I didn?t do anything, so my water bill doubled plus a little.

 

When the rains came a couple years ago, there was no more water crisis, but they didn?t reduce the water rates to the previous level.  The water delivery was no more expensive during the drought than it was afterwards.  They didn?t need to hire more people just because the snow pack was dwindling.  They charged more the encourage conservation.  So now, when we have plenty of water and need to throw it into the sea to prevent overtopping the dams, the higher rate structure is still in place.

 

Now the appliance makers can make another round of profits by marketing features to defeat the water-saving features they profited from adding during the drought.

 

spike

 

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2019 10:13 AM
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: 'spike at rainier66.com' <spike at rainier66.com>
Subject: big rip in washing machines

 

 

 

In our world today, it is not necessary that one have a sensa huma.  But it helps.

 

I had to laugh today.  We bought a washing machine about 5 yrs ago which was the latest thing: it was designed with feedback loops to measure water levels with the goal in mind of conserving water.  Great marketing feature in California, as we were in the depths of a multi-year drought.  There were people accepting the notion that it was all global warming and it would never rain again and all kinds of silly extremism.  The state offered incentives to manufacturers for selling these water-stingy machines.  We bought one, being typical suckers.

 

A coupla years ago, we had a really wet season and the reservoir behind an enormous earthen dam rose quickly.  The Oroville authorities were reluctant to dump the water thru the spillways (because water is valuable stuff (and everybody knew the rains would stop.))  The rains kept coming, and by the time the dam authorities opened up the dam flood gates, it was too dam late, and the water rose to overtop the emergency spillway, which hadn?t been properly maintained because it wasn?t going to be used.  Until it was.  And it failed.  That clapping sound you heard was buttholes slamming shut everywhere in California, for if that dam failed, goodbye town of Oroville and everything downstream, and goodbye water supply for much of California.  

 

It held, and has been repaired.  OK so now we are having another record-breaking wet year.  The Sierras have ski resorts which could not open in years past because there wasn?t enough snow.  This year some of them cannot open because they can?t shovel out the ski lifts which are buried in snow.

 

We didn?t like water-stingy washing machine.  There wasn?t enough control over that feature.  We had loads of clothing where we found places that had never gotten wet.  If it didn?t get wet, it didn?t get clean.  Being a typical geek engineer, I did some calculations on how much we saved by this machine, but I noticed it also uses more power at the expense of using less water.  Well? power is expensive, water is cheap.  These so-called high-efficiency machines save a little water at the expense of using more power (because the cycle lasts longer (which is also a negative.))

 

Sunday the thing conked.  Rather than mess with it, my bride suggested replacing it.  I concurred, so she picked one, didn?t mention further why that one or what she picked.  The lads delivered it about an hour ago.  It is similar to the previous one but with a new feature: it allows one to defeat the water-saving feature.  A big sticker on the top of the machine in inch-tall all-caps proclaims:

 

YOU CAN USE AS MUCH WATER AS YOU WANT.

 

Under that sales pitch:

 

Flexible water features put YOU in control.

 

I had to laugh at our own silliness.  California consumers bought up water-saver washers, now we are buying up washers that give us the option of defeating the water saver feature.

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  8 17:50:16 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 11:50:16 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>

You said anything less than four figures is OK to buy for you and your wife
without consultation.  But have you looked at prices lately for washers and
dryers?  You can spend well into the four figures at Home Depot.  I almost
always use the cheapest dryer available.
The sun.  Best at getting rid of mites on linens.  You are probably banned
from doing that, eh?

bill w

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 7:30 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> Heh.
>
>
>
> As if on cue, an article appears which tells the same story I experienced:
>
>
>
>
> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-inefficiency-of-efficiency-appliance-standards-often-cost-more-than-they-save
>
>
>
> If anything this understates the case.  These ?high efficiency? washing
> machines do use more power in exchange for using only a little less water.
> If one is up on the highest tier, power is very expensive.
>
>
>
> Here?s a funny one to along with it.  Until fairly recently, California
> was in an extended drought.  The voters agreed to a water rate hike to act
> as an encouragement to save water.  A lot of people took out their lawns
> and put in low water toilets and such (which are a pain in themselves.)  I
> didn?t do anything, so my water bill doubled plus a little.
>
>
>
> When the rains came a couple years ago, there was no more water crisis,
> but they didn?t reduce the water rates to the previous level.  The water
> delivery was no more expensive during the drought than it was afterwards.
> They didn?t need to hire more people just because the snow pack was
> dwindling.  They charged more the encourage conservation.  So now, when we
> have plenty of water and need to throw it into the sea to prevent
> overtopping the dams, the higher rate structure is still in place.
>
>
>
> Now the appliance makers can make another round of profits by marketing
> features to defeat the water-saving features they profited from adding
> during the drought.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> *From:* spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, March 7, 2019 10:13 AM
> *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Cc:* 'spike at rainier66.com' <spike at rainier66.com>
> *Subject:* big rip in washing machines
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> In our world today, it is not necessary that one have a sensa huma.  But
> it helps.
>
>
>
> I had to laugh today.  We bought a washing machine about 5 yrs ago which
> was the latest thing: it was designed with feedback loops to measure water
> levels with the goal in mind of conserving water.  Great marketing feature
> in California, as we were in the depths of a multi-year drought.  There
> were people accepting the notion that it was all global warming and it
> would never rain again and all kinds of silly extremism.  The state offered
> incentives to manufacturers for selling these water-stingy machines.  We
> bought one, being typical suckers.
>
>
>
> A coupla years ago, we had a really wet season and the reservoir behind an
> enormous earthen dam rose quickly.  The Oroville authorities were reluctant
> to dump the water thru the spillways (because water is valuable stuff (and
> everybody knew the rains would stop.))  The rains kept coming, and by the
> time the dam authorities opened up the dam flood gates, it was too dam
> late, and the water rose to overtop the emergency spillway, which hadn?t
> been properly maintained because it wasn?t going to be used.  Until it
> was.  And it failed.  That clapping sound you heard was buttholes slamming
> shut everywhere in California, for if that dam failed, goodbye town of
> Oroville and everything downstream, and goodbye water supply for much of
> California.
>
>
>
> It held, and has been repaired.  OK so now we are having another
> record-breaking wet year.  The Sierras have ski resorts which could not
> open in years past because there wasn?t enough snow.  This year some of
> them cannot open because they can?t shovel out the ski lifts which are
> buried in snow.
>
>
>
> We didn?t like water-stingy washing machine.  There wasn?t enough control
> over that feature.  We had loads of clothing where we found places that had
> never gotten wet.  If it didn?t get wet, it didn?t get clean.  Being a
> typical geek engineer, I did some calculations on how much we saved by this
> machine, but I noticed it also uses more power at the expense of using less
> water.  Well? power is expensive, water is cheap.  These so-called
> high-efficiency machines save a little water at the expense of using more
> power (because the cycle lasts longer (which is also a negative.))
>
>
>
> Sunday the thing conked.  Rather than mess with it, my bride suggested
> replacing it.  I concurred, so she picked one, didn?t mention further why
> that one or what she picked.  The lads delivered it about an hour ago.  It
> is similar to the previous one but with a new feature: it allows one to
> defeat the water-saving feature.  A big sticker on the top of the machine
> in inch-tall all-caps proclaims:
>
>
>
> YOU CAN USE AS MUCH WATER AS YOU WANT.
>
>
>
> Under that sales pitch:
>
>
>
> Flexible water features put YOU in control.
>
>
>
> I had to laugh at our own silliness.  California consumers bought up
> water-saver washers, now we are buying up washers that give us the option
> of defeating the water saver feature.
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  8 19:42:28 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 11:42:28 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004b01d4d5e7$10590c60$310b2520$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] big rip in washing machines

 

You said anything less than four figures is OK to buy for you and your wife without consultation.  But have you looked at prices lately for washers and dryers?  You can spend well into the four figures at Home Depot.  I almost always use the cheapest dryer available.

The sun.  Best at getting rid of mites on linens.  You are probably banned from doing that, eh?   

 

bill w

 

 

 

BillW, I am with you on sun drying, but living out west where the air is dryer, one can hang one?s clothing indoors and accomplish the same thing.  No need to put them outdoors, inviting birds to turd upon them.   If you clean out the lint screen on your dryer, keep in mind that the lint you just threw away is your clothing. Less dryer time, less lint, less of your clothing is wearing away with each laundry cycle.

 

I have a rigged up a horizontal hanging rod in the downstairs shower: tumble the clothing for about 10 minutes with a double dose of those fabric softener sheets on zero heat, hang em damp, gravity pulls out the wrinkles, next day they are dry and ready to wear.

 

Regarding mites on linens: I like mites.  Have you ever looked at one under a microscope?  It is marvelous to think that everything necessary for a creature to live is all packed inside one of those tiny specks, but there is something even cooler.  A big component of household dust is actually dead skin flakes.  Dust mites make their living devouring those.  So that way, it reduces the accumulation of dead skin, replacing it with accumulated mite shit.  Now don?t you feel better?  Hanging your clothing damp preserves your mites.  If you don?t have allergies to them, dust mites are your friends.

 

spike

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  8 21:07:44 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 15:07:44 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <004b01d4d5e7$10590c60$310b2520$@rainier66.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01d4d5e7$10590c60$310b2520$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEb4VoQNckkHePz3oJ=o_kocT+sxDiX4p02O7UCK--+ewA@mail.gmail.com>

On my first trip out West, to El Paso in the 50s, I took a shower and went
out on the deck to get dry.  As you know, it took a few minutes to
accomplish that, and a few minutes more for my skin to feel like it was
cooking.  Nobody sunbathes out there.

But I am surprised that it's so dry in San Jose, as close to the ocean as
you are.

But the reason I put things out in the sun is to get rid of those mites,
however cute they may be.  A dryer just can't compete with the sun for
that.  Yes, I do have allergies.  I wake up every morning of this world
stuffed up and take an antihistamine every day.

I used to save lint to put in my compost before realizing that most of it
was some artificial fiber which would add nothing to my plants.  Boring,
boring, I am going to sleep now.............

bill w

On Fri, Mar 8, 2019 at 1:47 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
>
>
>
> You said anything less than four figures is OK to buy for you and your
> wife without consultation.  But have you looked at prices lately for
> washers and dryers?  You can spend well into the four figures at Home
> Depot.  I almost always use the cheapest dryer available.
>
> The sun.  Best at getting rid of mites on linens.  You are probably banned
> from doing that, eh?
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> BillW, I am with you on sun drying, but living out west where the air is
> dryer, one can hang one?s clothing indoors and accomplish the same thing.
> No need to put them outdoors, inviting birds to turd upon them.   If you
> clean out the lint screen on your dryer, keep in mind that the lint you
> just threw away is your clothing. Less dryer time, less lint, less of your
> clothing is wearing away with each laundry cycle.
>
>
>
> I have a rigged up a horizontal hanging rod in the downstairs shower:
> tumble the clothing for about 10 minutes with a double dose of those fabric
> softener sheets on zero heat, hang em damp, gravity pulls out the wrinkles,
> next day they are dry and ready to wear.
>
>
>
> Regarding mites on linens: I like mites.  Have you ever looked at one
> under a microscope?  It is marvelous to think that everything necessary for
> a creature to live is all packed inside one of those tiny specks, but there
> is something even cooler.  A big component of household dust is actually
> dead skin flakes.  Dust mites make their living devouring those.  So that
> way, it reduces the accumulation of dead skin, replacing it with
> accumulated mite shit.  Now don?t you feel better?  Hanging your clothing
> damp preserves your mites.  If you don?t have allergies to them, dust mites
> are your friends.
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  8 22:29:47 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 14:29:47 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEb4VoQNckkHePz3oJ=o_kocT+sxDiX4p02O7UCK--+ewA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01d4d5e7$10590c60$310b2520$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEb4VoQNckkHePz3oJ=o_kocT+sxDiX4p02O7UCK--+ewA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <002601d4d5fe$70830070$51890150$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace



 

>?I used to save lint to put in my compost before realizing that most of it was some artificial fiber which would add nothing to my plants?  bill w

 

 

It is an interesting question, but I have a speculation.  We know that plenty of modern clothing is made with a combination of natural fibers and artificial.  Those of us who have a favorite old T-shirt for years know that eventually there is little left of it but the artificial fiber, which eventually come to resemble nylon hosiery.  So perhaps the lint in your dryer is mostly cotton and would help your compost.

 

As I wrote the above, it occurred to me that this notion is easily testable: if the lint is cotton it will burn quickly with almost no ash.  If it is polyester, it will burn with a lot of smoke while melting and smell terrible.

 

Anyone want to try?

 

spike

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From spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  8 22:37:17 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 14:37:17 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <002601d4d5fe$70830070$51890150$@rainier66.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01d4d5e7$10590c60$310b2520$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEb4VoQNckkHePz3oJ=o_kocT+sxDiX4p02O7UCK--+ewA@mail.gmail.com>
 <002601d4d5fe$70830070$51890150$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <003701d4d5ff$7cd5a520$7680ef60$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 



 

>?As I wrote the above, it occurred to me that this notion is easily testable: if the lint is cotton it will burn quickly with almost no ash.  If it is polyester, it will burn with a lot of smoke while melting and smell terrible.

 

Anyone want to try?

 

Spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK I have the answer:  it burned up.  Conclusion:  dryer lint is almost entirely cotton.

 

BillW, add it to your compost, me lad.

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  8 22:44:40 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 16:44:40 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <002601d4d5fe$70830070$51890150$@rainier66.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01d4d5e7$10590c60$310b2520$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEb4VoQNckkHePz3oJ=o_kocT+sxDiX4p02O7UCK--+ewA@mail.gmail.com>
 <002601d4d5fe$70830070$51890150$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa1K+zoNUkKxo0jrubEtbpfM9=swHLuY3NH3dYUaqCG0Q@mail.gmail.com>

I have gotten better about tossing things, but I do have a warm jacket that
is approaching 50 years old.  T shirts I apparently don't keep as long as
you do.

Isn't polyester the fabric that exudes very toxic smoke when burned?  I
remember some time back about how many things in our living room, covered
with fabric, would kill anyone smelling a lot of that smoke if the house
burned.

We complement one another:  you are one fount of trivial information and I
am another and likely overlap very little.  (to go along with our vast
expertise, of course, in our fields)

bill w

On Fri, Mar 8, 2019 at 4:34 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
>
>
>
> >?I used to save lint to put in my compost before realizing that most of
> it was some artificial fiber which would add nothing to my plants?  bill w
>
>
>
>
>
> It is an interesting question, but I have a speculation.  We know that
> plenty of modern clothing is made with a combination of natural fibers and
> artificial.  Those of us who have a favorite old T-shirt for years know
> that eventually there is little left of it but the artificial fiber, which
> eventually come to resemble nylon hosiery.  So perhaps the lint in your
> dryer is mostly cotton and would help your compost.
>
>
>
> As I wrote the above, it occurred to me that this notion is easily
> testable: if the lint is cotton it will burn quickly with almost no ash.
> If it is polyester, it will burn with a lot of smoke while melting and
> smell terrible.
>
>
>
> Anyone want to try?
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Fri Mar  8 23:20:49 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 15:20:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa1K+zoNUkKxo0jrubEtbpfM9=swHLuY3NH3dYUaqCG0Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01d4d5e7$10590c60$310b2520$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEb4VoQNckkHePz3oJ=o_kocT+sxDiX4p02O7UCK--+ewA@mail.gmail.com>
 <002601d4d5fe$70830070$51890150$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEa1K+zoNUkKxo0jrubEtbpfM9=swHLuY3NH3dYUaqCG0Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001a01d4d605$91885ac0$b4991040$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace



 

>?Isn't polyester the fabric that exudes very toxic smoke when burned?  I remember some time back about how many things in our living room, covered with fabric, would kill anyone smelling a lot of that smoke if the house burned?

 

Ja this dryer-lint test was easy.  I already knew that cotton burns with an almost odorless or slightly woody smelling white smoke.  Polyester burns with an acrid black smoke.  I recently taught scouts how to secure the end of a rope from unravelling by burning the end.  But do it outdoors, preferably on a breezy day.

 

 

>?We complement one another:  you are one fount of trivial information? bill w

 

BillW, we both complement and compliment each other.  

 

I must say in all modesty, I am often referred to as an enormous suppository of knowledge.  I always wanted to be an enormous suppository.

 

spike

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From stathisp at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 00:01:06 2019
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 11:01:06 +1100
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAH=2ypXMa+3jhq9oU3x-yKj2s8t4Xnsy8akaF6ZFrjw7De4gwQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, 9 Mar 2019 at 4:54 am, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> You said anything less than four figures is OK to buy for you and your
> wife without consultation.  But have you looked at prices lately for
> washers and dryers?  You can spend well into the four figures at Home
> Depot.  I almost always use the cheapest dryer available.
> The sun.  Best at getting rid of mites on linens.  You are probably banned
> from doing that, eh?
>

I once visited friends who lived on a rather large property in Arizona. It
was about 50 degrees Celsius, but they still took their clothes out of the
washing machine and into a drier. They would have dried almost as quickly
if they left them in the basket. I enquires, and it seemed that air drying
just did not figure as an option in their minds. To me, it seemed crazy.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  9 00:22:40 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 16:22:40 -0800
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <CAH=2ypXMa+3jhq9oU3x-yKj2s8t4Xnsy8akaF6ZFrjw7De4gwQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH=2ypXMa+3jhq9oU3x-yKj2s8t4Xnsy8akaF6ZFrjw7De4gwQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001101d4d60e$35a1cf30$a0e56d90$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou
Subject: Re: [ExI] big rip in washing machines

 

 

 

On Sat, 9 Mar 2019 at 4:54 am, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com <mailto:foozler83 at gmail.com> > wrote:

You said anything less than four figures is OK to buy for you and your wife without consultation.  But have you looked at prices lately for washers and dryers?  You can spend well into the four figures at Home Depot.  I almost always use the cheapest dryer available.

The sun.  Best at getting rid of mites on linens.  You are probably banned from doing that, eh?

 

I once visited friends who lived on a rather large property in Arizona. It was about 50 degrees Celsius, but they still took their clothes out of the washing machine and into a drier. They would have dried almost as quickly if they left them in the basket. I enquires, and it seemed that air drying just did not figure as an option in their minds. To me, it seemed crazy.

-- 

Stathis Papaioannou

 

 

Ja.  I used to live in Southern California, out in the desert.  I had a clothesline there.  You could go down the line hanging, then as soon as you finished a couple minutes later, you could go back where you started and take down perfectly dry clothes.  It really only took a coupla minutes when there is a scorching dry breeze and perfectly clear skies.

 

It was cool having a nuclear fusion powered dryer.

 

I still do: even if you dry indoors, the same fusion source warms the air.

 

spike

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From avant at sollegro.com  Sat Mar  9 15:26:49 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2019 07:26:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
In-Reply-To: <mailman.3.1551535065.24032.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Dan Ust:

> Dragon 2 is on its way to the ISS.

And now it has made a safe return. I am actually a little surprised  
that nobody has mentioned the success of the first manned space  
mission using a privately owned space craft. How cool is that? I for  
one think it heralds a day when there will be jobs for bartenders in  
space.


Stuart LaForge


From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  9 15:42:26 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 07:42:26 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
In-Reply-To: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <mailman.3.1551535065.24032.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <004601d4d68e$b29c12e0$17d438a0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Stuart LaForge
Subject: Re: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!



>> Dragon 2 is on its way to the ISS... Dan

>...And now it has made a safe return. I am actually a little surprised that
nobody has mentioned the success of the first manned space mission using a
privately owned space craft. How cool is that? 

Ja it is way cool.


>...I for one think it heralds a day when there will be jobs for bartenders
in space.  Stuart LaForge

I don't see why not.  There are jobs for bartenders in the US congress...

{8^D

spike





From danust2012 at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 15:48:18 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 07:48:18 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
In-Reply-To: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <7B6ACC47-425F-4277-AC29-FDB3E4806138@gmail.com>

On Mar 9, 2019, at 7:26 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:
> 
> Quoting Dan Ust:
> 
>> Dragon 2 is on its way to the ISS.
> 
> And now it has made a safe return. I am actually a little surprised that nobody has mentioned the success of the first manned space mission using a privately owned space craft. How cool is that? I for one think it heralds a day when there will be jobs for bartenders in space.

Actually, Dragon 2 had no crew aboard. The crewed mission is scheduled for July this year. And before that is one more test flight: the in flight abort test scheduled for this June. See:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2019/02/06/

Note that there?s still a chance of Boeing beating SpaceX with the first private crewed mission to orbit.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From avant at sollegro.com  Sat Mar  9 16:12:42 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2019 08:12:42 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
In-Reply-To: <2062730220.2093807.1552146998751@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <7B6ACC47-425F-4277-AC29-FDB3E4806138@gmail.com>
 <2062730220.2093807.1552146998751@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190309081242.Horde.8xaa24MHI3c62yH6ymS0p1W@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Dan Ust:


>>> Dragon 2 is on its way to the ISS.
>
>
>> And now it has made a safe return. I am actually a little surprised  
>> that nobody has mentioned the success of the first manned space  
>> mission using a privately owned space craft. How cool is that? I  
>> for one think it heralds a day when there will be jobs for  
>> bartenders in space.

> Actually, Dragon 2 had no crew aboard. The crewed mission is  
> scheduled for July this year. And before that is one more test  
> flight: the in flight abort test scheduled for this June. See:
> https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2019/02/06/
> Note that there?s still a chance of Boeing beating SpaceX with the  
> first private crewed mission to orbit.

Well that sir is a mighty fine explanation for why nobody has  
mentioned it yet. :-P

Stuart LaForge


From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 17:28:01 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 17:28:01 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Life extension - but what about Alzheimer's?
Message-ID: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>

Body Regeneration Plus Brain Degeneration may Result to "Zombies"
Richelle H. Concio Mar 09, 2019

<https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/18433/20190309/body-regeneration-plus-brain-degeneration-result-zombies.htm>

Quote:
The oldest person who lived reached the age of 122. With this,
scientists say that the new lifespan of an average human could now be
120. Recently, researchers have reported the possibility of living up
to 180 years of age. This will warrant, however, a careful regimen of
restricted calorie intake.

Many studies are being conducted to prolong the average human
lifespan. There are medicines, supplements, medical procedures, and
searches for different cures all in the hopes of extending life.
Laboratories across the globe are on a quest to find out why cells age
and how to stop it from doing so.

A professor in cardiovascular sciences from King's College London,
Mauri Giacca, argues how pointless it is to keep one's body alive
while its brain is degenerating. Giacca pointed out how impractical it
is to have a healthy body and a low-functioning brain. As the body and
the brain ages, certain effects of degeneration manifest in the human
body. One of the most common cases where the brain is functioning
poorly is when a person undergoes dementia. In Britain, there are
around 850,000 people suffering from dementia. By 2025, this number
will rise to about a million. There has already been a mountain of
effort, time and resources being dedicated to come up with a drug or
therapy to reverse dementia. However, setbacks have been rendering
these efforts with no promising results and developments.

Giacca explains that moving slower when a human grows older is a
result of having 10 to 15% of the brain to have died already. A human
body typically loses 80,000 neurons per day and there has been no
studies on how to regenerate them. At this rate, reaching 80 to 90
years of age could mean a that the human brain has already lost a lot.
This also opens the person to the risk of suffering from Alzheimer's
disease where neuron loss is accelerated much faster.

If this is the case, then continued attempts to regenerate the body
without a solution for a degenerating brain can be compared to a
zombie outbreak, like those seen on movies. The bodies are perfect,
strong and healthy but the brain does not have the capacity to reason
or to think at all.
-----------------

There is a lot that has to be developed at the same time as
anti-ageing treatments.
Disease cures, for example.
If the body lives longer then medical maintenance costs may have to
increase significantly.

BillK

From atymes at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 18:18:19 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 10:18:19 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Life extension - but what about Alzheimer's?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 9:32 AM BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a lot that has to be developed at the same time as
> anti-ageing treatments.
> Disease cures, for example.
> If the body lives longer then medical maintenance costs may have to
> increase significantly.

The best "cure" for Alzheimer's is to stay mentally active, even into
one's elder years.  This is something that many people are unwilling
to contemplate - they want to just be idle and cared for.  But the
body is designed to be used; going totally idle for months or years
(possibly even weeks) means you're no longer contributing, and your
body starts shutting down.

From brent.allsop at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 18:30:47 2019
From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 11:30:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
In-Reply-To: <20190309081242.Horde.8xaa24MHI3c62yH6ymS0p1W@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <7B6ACC47-425F-4277-AC29-FDB3E4806138@gmail.com>
 <2062730220.2093807.1552146998751@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190309081242.Horde.8xaa24MHI3c62yH6ymS0p1W@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-ontkfXakDDMxRS26GT9nMVsTHioc=_O2opQOxLnNgCYwuQ@mail.gmail.com>

Did anyone notice the messed up looking state of the capsule, after they
pulled it out of the water?
Maybe it just looks bad, but it sure doesn't look like it could ever take
people back into space?


On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 9:15 AM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

>
> Quoting Dan Ust:
>
>
> >>> Dragon 2 is on its way to the ISS.
> >
> >
> >> And now it has made a safe return. I am actually a little surprised
> >> that nobody has mentioned the success of the first manned space
> >> mission using a privately owned space craft. How cool is that? I
> >> for one think it heralds a day when there will be jobs for
> >> bartenders in space.
>
> > Actually, Dragon 2 had no crew aboard. The crewed mission is
> > scheduled for July this year. And before that is one more test
> > flight: the in flight abort test scheduled for this June. See:
> > https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2019/02/06/
> > Note that there?s still a chance of Boeing beating SpaceX with the
> > first private crewed mission to orbit.
>
> Well that sir is a mighty fine explanation for why nobody has
> mentioned it yet. :-P
>
> 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 danust2012 at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 18:38:44 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 10:38:44 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-ontkfXakDDMxRS26GT9nMVsTHioc=_O2opQOxLnNgCYwuQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <7B6ACC47-425F-4277-AC29-FDB3E4806138@gmail.com>
 <2062730220.2093807.1552146998751@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190309081242.Horde.8xaa24MHI3c62yH6ymS0p1W@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAK7-ontkfXakDDMxRS26GT9nMVsTHioc=_O2opQOxLnNgCYwuQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <60C61130-F8C6-4B47-91C7-F746253A611C@gmail.com>

On Mar 9, 2019, at 10:30 AM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Did anyone notice the messed up looking state of the capsule, after they pulled it out of the water?
> Maybe it just looks bad, but it sure doesn't look like it could ever take people back into space?

I noticed it, but I presume when they say they?ll be testing a refurbished one next time that they expect to do some work on it. After all, unlike the first stage boosters, the capsule does experience significant re-entry burn.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 19:01:39 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 13:01:39 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Life extension - but what about Alzheimer's?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaxaXFwHRH65ZUFc-0QCZiFLArvEqktPU0R61QZ53zcxA@mail.gmail.com>

The best "cure" for Alzheimer's is to stay mentally active, even into
one's elder years.  This is something that many people are unwilling
to contemplate - they want to just be idle and cared for.  But the
body is designed to be used; going totally idle for months or years
(possibly even weeks) means you're no longer contributing, and your
body starts shutting down.  adrian

It is a myth that neurons die every day starting when we are young.  And
it's a myth that we grow no new ones.  That said, there is no substitution
for 'use it or lose it'.  Of course our bodies get fragile - knees and
hips, etc. so it's harder to stay fit, but there is no impediment to
learning.  It just has to active learning, not watching TV/videos.  I am
not 100% mentally - not as quick, mostly.  I read an read because I enjoy
it, but I do hope it's making my brain work and work.    bill w

On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 12:22 PM Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 9:32 AM BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There is a lot that has to be developed at the same time as
> > anti-ageing treatments.
> > Disease cures, for example.
> > If the body lives longer then medical maintenance costs may have to
> > increase significantly.
>
> The best "cure" for Alzheimer's is to stay mentally active, even into
> one's elder years.  This is something that many people are unwilling
> to contemplate - they want to just be idle and cared for.  But the
> body is designed to be used; going totally idle for months or years
> (possibly even weeks) means you're no longer contributing, and your
> body starts shutting down.
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Sat Mar  9 19:01:49 2019
From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 12:01:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
In-Reply-To: <60C61130-F8C6-4B47-91C7-F746253A611C@gmail.com>
References: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <7B6ACC47-425F-4277-AC29-FDB3E4806138@gmail.com>
 <2062730220.2093807.1552146998751@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190309081242.Horde.8xaa24MHI3c62yH6ymS0p1W@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAK7-ontkfXakDDMxRS26GT9nMVsTHioc=_O2opQOxLnNgCYwuQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <60C61130-F8C6-4B47-91C7-F746253A611C@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEptUkSLoWpP59_PLw8xKXfEXFQTSozMibG4JHJVTEN7mbEzzA@mail.gmail.com>

I seem to recall reading that SpaceX has no intention of requalifying used
Crew Dragon capsules for additional manned flights - it's just too
expensive and time-consuming - substantially cheaper just to build another
one. Though apparently they are looking at using filght-used Crew Dragons
as unmanned cargo capsules.

They're going to reuse this one for the unmanned in-flight abort test
coming up, but that'll be it for this particular capsule - it'll never fly
people.

On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 11:47 AM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 9, 2019, at 10:30 AM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Did anyone notice the messed up looking state of the capsule, after they
> pulled it out of the water?
> > Maybe it just looks bad, but it sure doesn't look like it could ever
> take people back into space?
>
> I noticed it, but I presume when they say they?ll be testing a refurbished
> one next time that they expect to do some work on it. After all, unlike the
> first stage boosters, the capsule does experience significant re-entry burn.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my Kindle books at:
> http://author.to/DanUst
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Sat Mar  9 19:28:05 2019
From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 12:28:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Congrats to SpaceX!
In-Reply-To: <CAEptUkSLoWpP59_PLw8xKXfEXFQTSozMibG4JHJVTEN7mbEzzA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190309072649.Horde.KV1SguO5hfNJ7267vUpUel_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <7B6ACC47-425F-4277-AC29-FDB3E4806138@gmail.com>
 <2062730220.2093807.1552146998751@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190309081242.Horde.8xaa24MHI3c62yH6ymS0p1W@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAK7-ontkfXakDDMxRS26GT9nMVsTHioc=_O2opQOxLnNgCYwuQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <60C61130-F8C6-4B47-91C7-F746253A611C@gmail.com>
 <CAEptUkSLoWpP59_PLw8xKXfEXFQTSozMibG4JHJVTEN7mbEzzA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-ontCriGB-OAp8X2wa65u-ntAXoaTe-Gjd6e46Q2CEEcFJg@mail.gmail.com>

That makes sense.
Do they reuse the unmanned dragon capsules that go up, then carry stuff
back down?


On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 12:22 PM Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I seem to recall reading that SpaceX has no intention of requalifying used
> Crew Dragon capsules for additional manned flights - it's just too
> expensive and time-consuming - substantially cheaper just to build another
> one. Though apparently they are looking at using filght-used Crew Dragons
> as unmanned cargo capsules.
>
> They're going to reuse this one for the unmanned in-flight abort test
> coming up, but that'll be it for this particular capsule - it'll never fly
> people.
>
> On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 11:47 AM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Mar 9, 2019, at 10:30 AM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Did anyone notice the messed up looking state of the capsule, after
>> they pulled it out of the water?
>> > Maybe it just looks bad, but it sure doesn't look like it could ever
>> take people back into space?
>>
>> I noticed it, but I presume when they say they?ll be testing a
>> refurbished one next time that they expect to do some work on it. After
>> all, unlike the first stage boosters, the capsule does experience
>> significant re-entry burn.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Dan
>>    Sample my Kindle books at:
>> http://author.to/DanUst
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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  Sat Mar  9 20:11:03 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 14:11:03 -0600
Subject: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
In-Reply-To: <001101d4d60e$35a1cf30$a0e56d90$@rainier66.com>
References: <004a01d4d54d$bf6d5ac0$3e481040$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEak5uQtuUPJMgec-AuNhLZQ_P85h+LnTb+vWW5FYeg24w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH=2ypXMa+3jhq9oU3x-yKj2s8t4Xnsy8akaF6ZFrjw7De4gwQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <001101d4d60e$35a1cf30$a0e56d90$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbTi8E4ph_usCb_pKb_1sN=_BU2r4Yfe8nosqeyYqL-sA@mail.gmail.com>

I once visited friends who lived on a rather large property in Arizona. It
was about 50 degrees Celsius, but they still took their clothes out of the
washing machine and into a drier. They would have dried almost as quickly
if they left them in the basket. I enquires, and it seemed that air drying
just did not figure as an option in their minds. To me, it seemed crazy.

A girl was watching her mother in the kitchen while she prepared a roast.
The mother took a knife and cut off the end of the roast.  The girl asked
her why she did that, and the mother said it was the way they always did
it, but asked her mother about it, and she said the same thing, so they
asked the great grandmother of the girl, and she said 'Why, to get it to
fit the pot.'  People get in a rut and miss the obvious alternatives and
even why they are doing what they are doing.  Custom is strong.  Why, for
instance, peel carrots?  You are missing a lot of the vitamins.  Ditto
potatoes.
bill w  p.s. dryer drying does take out wrinkles - air doesn't

On Fri, Mar 8, 2019 at 6:27 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *Stathis Papaioannou
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] big rip in washing machines
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 9 Mar 2019 at 4:54 am, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> You said anything less than four figures is OK to buy for you and your
> wife without consultation.  But have you looked at prices lately for
> washers and dryers?  You can spend well into the four figures at Home
> Depot.  I almost always use the cheapest dryer available.
>
> The sun.  Best at getting rid of mites on linens.  You are probably banned
> from doing that, eh?
>
>
>
> I once visited friends who lived on a rather large property in Arizona. It
> was about 50 degrees Celsius, but they still took their clothes out of the
> washing machine and into a drier. They would have dried almost as quickly
> if they left them in the basket. I enquires, and it seemed that air drying
> just did not figure as an option in their minds. To me, it seemed crazy.
>
> --
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
>
>
>
>
> Ja.  I used to live in Southern California, out in the desert.  I had a
> clothesline there.  You could go down the line hanging, then as soon as you
> finished a couple minutes later, you could go back where you started and
> take down perfectly dry clothes.  It really only took a coupla minutes when
> there is a scorching dry breeze and perfectly clear skies.
>
>
>
> It was cool having a nuclear fusion powered dryer.
>
>
>
> I still do: even if you dry indoors, the same fusion source warms the air.
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar  9 20:30:49 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 12:30:49 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Life extension - but what about Alzheimer's?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00e301d4d6b6$fbee2ff0$f3ca8fd0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Adrian Tymes



>...The best "cure" for Alzheimer's is to stay mentally active, even into
one's elder years.  This is something that many people are unwilling to
contemplate - they want to just be idle and cared for.  But the body is
designed to be used; going totally idle for months or years (possibly even
weeks) means you're no longer contributing, and your body starts shutting
down.  Adrian
_______________________________________________


I have suspected this for a long time.  If one has been bed sick for even a
week, that has a very noticeable impact on muscle strength.  Muscles and
brains must be used to stay with the program.

I have the notion that if we can get good enough immersive reality software
and virtual reality software, we can keep older peoples' minds active and
functional longer.

spike


From interzone at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 20:58:11 2019
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 15:58:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Life extension - but what about Alzheimer's?
In-Reply-To: <00e301d4d6b6$fbee2ff0$f3ca8fd0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00e301d4d6b6$fbee2ff0$f3ca8fd0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH9Xw2zuOxtj5=0XivreuwQ6d7qsCZVWSkW0Utr6i9Y6Ow@mail.gmail.com>

While I would always encourage everyone to stay mentally active, there are
real biological mechanisms of aging you are up against in addition to
specific pathologies with dementia/AD.

There are two areas that are worth pursuing in the near term for those
comfortable enough to self experiment to fight the march of time.  The
preliminary evidence is there to point the way forward, but we are unlikely
to have large scale trials to confirm in humans any time soon.

The first area is mTOR inhibitors which in oversimplified terms are anti
growth agents with a host of potentially positive effects on aging.  You
can get some of these effects with relatively severe caloric restriction,
but there are two pharmaceutical agents that target mTOR, are arguably
safe, and available:  rapamycin (mTOR actually stands for mammalian target
of rapamycin) and metformin.  There is a lot of interest in mTOR inhibitors
as general longevity agents, but there is also accumulating evidence that
AD is related to chronic cerebral vascularization issues and that rapamycin
in particular may help maintain the integrity of the blood brain barrier
and provide other positive AD preventative effects.

The second area is senolytics which help with removing senescent (zombie)
cells.  Unfortunately, the most effective combination currently available
is hard to replicate on your own and consists of a chemotherapy agent,
dasatinib, combined with quercetin (a supplement).  Fisetin is an available
supplement with strong senolytic activity on its own but dosing to achieve
this in humans is still a question mark.

Anyways, I firmly believe a combination of these two approaches started
early enough is going to end up demonstrating very strong antiaging / AD
effects in humans based on the accumulating evidence in the literature.

If anyone is interested in further discussion on either area, I can provide
some references from the literature to get you started, but googling will
also lead you down the same rabbit hole.



On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 3:33 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
> Adrian Tymes
>
>
>
> >...The best "cure" for Alzheimer's is to stay mentally active, even into
> one's elder years.  This is something that many people are unwilling to
> contemplate - they want to just be idle and cared for.  But the body is
> designed to be used; going totally idle for months or years (possibly even
> weeks) means you're no longer contributing, and your body starts shutting
> down.  Adrian
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> I have suspected this for a long time.  If one has been bed sick for even a
> week, that has a very noticeable impact on muscle strength.  Muscles and
> brains must be used to stay with the program.
>
> I have the notion that if we can get good enough immersive reality software
> and virtual reality software, we can keep older peoples' minds active and
> functional longer.
>
> 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  Sat Mar  9 21:29:29 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 15:29:29 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Life extension - but what about Alzheimer's?
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH9Xw2zuOxtj5=0XivreuwQ6d7qsCZVWSkW0Utr6i9Y6Ow@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00e301d4d6b6$fbee2ff0$f3ca8fd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJrqPH9Xw2zuOxtj5=0XivreuwQ6d7qsCZVWSkW0Utr6i9Y6Ow@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEafdfN0NdYGYTy0FBKkUUO5-fO8Km1hCDUGztfJfsqLrQ@mail.gmail.com>

I can vouch for metformin.  I begged my doctor for it after doing some
online research, and she finally gave it to me, though the use for me is an
'off the label' list - hard to get doctors to prescribe.  A few gut
reactions in some people, but overall, a very safe drug.

No drug company has any kind of patent on it, so you don't see ads for it,
but I think it's a very important drug, and the best one, maybe, for
diabetes 2.  Ought to be over the counter.

bill w

On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 3:03 PM Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:

> While I would always encourage everyone to stay mentally active, there are
> real biological mechanisms of aging you are up against in addition to
> specific pathologies with dementia/AD.
>
> There are two areas that are worth pursuing in the near term for those
> comfortable enough to self experiment to fight the march of time.  The
> preliminary evidence is there to point the way forward, but we are unlikely
> to have large scale trials to confirm in humans any time soon.
>
> The first area is mTOR inhibitors which in oversimplified terms are anti
> growth agents with a host of potentially positive effects on aging.  You
> can get some of these effects with relatively severe caloric restriction,
> but there are two pharmaceutical agents that target mTOR, are arguably
> safe, and available:  rapamycin (mTOR actually stands for mammalian target
> of rapamycin) and metformin.  There is a lot of interest in mTOR inhibitors
> as general longevity agents, but there is also accumulating evidence that
> AD is related to chronic cerebral vascularization issues and that rapamycin
> in particular may help maintain the integrity of the blood brain barrier
> and provide other positive AD preventative effects.
>
> The second area is senolytics which help with removing senescent (zombie)
> cells.  Unfortunately, the most effective combination currently available
> is hard to replicate on your own and consists of a chemotherapy agent,
> dasatinib, combined with quercetin (a supplement).  Fisetin is an
> available supplement with strong senolytic activity on its own but dosing
> to achieve this in humans is still a question mark.
>
> Anyways, I firmly believe a combination of these two approaches started
> early enough is going to end up demonstrating very strong antiaging / AD
> effects in humans based on the accumulating evidence in the literature.
>
> If anyone is interested in further discussion on either area, I can
> provide some references from the literature to get you started, but
> googling will also lead you down the same rabbit hole.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 3:33 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
>> Adrian Tymes
>>
>>
>>
>> >...The best "cure" for Alzheimer's is to stay mentally active, even into
>> one's elder years.  This is something that many people are unwilling to
>> contemplate - they want to just be idle and cared for.  But the body is
>> designed to be used; going totally idle for months or years (possibly even
>> weeks) means you're no longer contributing, and your body starts shutting
>> down.  Adrian
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>> I have suspected this for a long time.  If one has been bed sick for even
>> a
>> week, that has a very noticeable impact on muscle strength.  Muscles and
>> brains must be used to stay with the program.
>>
>> I have the notion that if we can get good enough immersive reality
>> software
>> and virtual reality software, we can keep older peoples' minds active and
>> functional longer.
>>
>> 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 atymes at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 22:03:48 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 14:03:48 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Life extension - but what about Alzheimer's?
In-Reply-To: <00e301d4d6b6$fbee2ff0$f3ca8fd0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00e301d4d6b6$fbee2ff0$f3ca8fd0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQJedv16TOcEfDZLWWtQQO9BfwX76OVY=FqHNCz5Tp9pQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 12:34 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> I have the notion that if we can get good enough immersive reality software
> and virtual reality software, we can keep older peoples' minds active and
> functional longer.

The challenge is not the software.  The challenge is getting people
who need to stay mentally active, to start and keep doing mentally
active things.  A lot of people have a learned distaste for
intellectual work.  With these people, you could spend billions of
dollars making AR software and it would be utterly, completely,
entirely wasted - or you can do the equivalent of counselling (costing
a few hundred, maybe a few thousands, of dollars per person) and get
them active with the activities and resources already available.

From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Mar  9 22:37:01 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 16:37:01 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Life extension - but what about Alzheimer's?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQJedv16TOcEfDZLWWtQQO9BfwX76OVY=FqHNCz5Tp9pQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armh2Y0E+Jnbt8qyi1=4d+ZKDjvLGaTK1RmK-VPMvxF4xYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNRdUSZ7+2n7uNwHUyehNY7_bWQEMjUXSXQ9Dy9xVF_XvA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00e301d4d6b6$fbee2ff0$f3ca8fd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNQJedv16TOcEfDZLWWtQQO9BfwX76OVY=FqHNCz5Tp9pQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEakOJaJnGRVd7RutFx4TA8W1SeCjZtyDGbF5prUHXVzWw@mail.gmail.com>

you can do the equivalent of counselling (costing
a few hundred, maybe a few thousands, of dollars per person) and get
them active with the activities and resources already available.
Adrian
I totally agree. Just one thing:  there is and always has been a stigma
attached to any sort of counseling, therapy and the like.  People associate
it with mental illness, which is not surprising.

One good thing: there is now and has been for a decade or so, a big push in
psychology, called positive psychology, to attend to making people better -
people with no mental problems but maybe aren't enjoying life very much -
the very people you are talking about.  It will take a long time in my
estimation, for this to catch on, but look at phenomena like life coaches.
They are doing somewhat the same thing - helping average people live a more
fulfilling life - without any hint of any kind of disorder however mild.

Best done in groups, I think.  Like Weight Watchers - a good track record
for people who have trouble doing it by themselves.

bill w


On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 4:08 PM Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 12:34 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> > I have the notion that if we can get good enough immersive reality
> software
> > and virtual reality software, we can keep older peoples' minds active and
> > functional longer.
>
> The challenge is not the software.  The challenge is getting people
> who need to stay mentally active, to start and keep doing mentally
> active things.  A lot of people have a learned distaste for
> intellectual work.  With these people, you could spend billions of
> dollars making AR software and it would be utterly, completely,
> entirely wasted - or you can do the equivalent of counselling (costing
> a few hundred, maybe a few thousands, of dollars per person) and get
> them active with the activities and resources already available.
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Sun Mar 10 00:00:20 2019
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 19:00:20 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Kentucky Funeral Home Cremated Body Instead of Releasing it
 to Cryonics Company
Message-ID: <91A7E22C-1A4C-4B0C-A19C-19F19A9B91C2@alumni.virginia.edu>

https://therundownlive.com/kentucky-funeral-home-cremated-body-instead-of-releasing-it-to-cryonics-company/

Interesting and disturbing dispute here. 
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 10 01:48:20 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 19:48:20 -0600
Subject: [ExI] metformin p.s.
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaOhTMEqAeiK3RCE0hnakLha+=g_r-ks5utp+ubZ8db8g@mail.gmail.com>

There is also some evidence that metformin can slow down some cancers. Also
it may slow bone loss.

Obviously drug companies are not funding studies of this, just like
turmeric, which is increasing in use solely due to word of mouth (not that
I have watched every health talk show!).

So many natural remedies - so many side effects from new drugs.

bill w
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From dsunley at gmail.com  Sun Mar 10 01:48:50 2019
From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 18:48:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Kentucky Funeral Home Cremated Body Instead of Releasing
 it to Cryonics Company
In-Reply-To: <91A7E22C-1A4C-4B0C-A19C-19F19A9B91C2@alumni.virginia.edu>
References: <91A7E22C-1A4C-4B0C-A19C-19F19A9B91C2@alumni.virginia.edu>
Message-ID: <CAEptUkTqG9KM48-5VDyZwZj3rCXMJLg=0U=LKUh8om4Mw0ZXcA@mail.gmail.com>

The legal ambiguity is indeed disturbing, but it sounds like her remains
were only discovered days after her death. Contract or no, there was no
personality or memories left in that brain to preserve. :(

On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 5:05 PM Henry Rivera <hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu>
wrote:

>
> https://therundownlive.com/kentucky-funeral-home-cremated-body-instead-of-releasing-it-to-cryonics-company/
>
> Interesting and disturbing dispute here.
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Sun Mar 10 02:01:34 2019
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 13:01:34 +1100
Subject: [ExI] metformin p.s.
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaOhTMEqAeiK3RCE0hnakLha+=g_r-ks5utp+ubZ8db8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEaOhTMEqAeiK3RCE0hnakLha+=g_r-ks5utp+ubZ8db8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAH=2ypWdUXQY7vi1oV2vA5ringETjyAHKUje3gwAtKc1SkNa8w@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, 10 Mar 2019 at 12:52, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> There is also some evidence that metformin can slow down some cancers.
> Also it may slow bone loss.
>
> Obviously drug companies are not funding studies of this, just like
> turmeric, which is increasing in use solely due to word of mouth (not that
> I have watched every health talk show!).
>
> So many natural remedies - so many side effects from new drugs.
>

Metformin can also decrease the chance of developing diabetes in someone
with impaired glucose tolerance, improve lipid profile, decrease weight
gain, especially in people who are on drugs such as antipsychotics which
induce weight gain. There is even some evidence that it can improve
depressed mood. It is an old, well-tested and cheap drug.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 10 02:23:20 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2019 18:23:20 -0800
Subject: [ExI] metformin p.s.
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaOhTMEqAeiK3RCE0hnakLha+=g_r-ks5utp+ubZ8db8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEaOhTMEqAeiK3RCE0hnakLha+=g_r-ks5utp+ubZ8db8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <011DA198-FD96-4EA4-8A0D-12497987A84B@gmail.com>

On Mar 9, 2019, at 5:48 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is also some evidence that metformin can slow down some cancers. Also it may slow bone loss.
> 
> Obviously drug companies are not funding studies of this, just like turmeric, which is increasing in use solely due to word of mouth (not that I have watched every health talk show!).
> 
> So many natural remedies - so many side effects from new drugs.

Life Extension Magazine did a write up on metformin a couple of years ago and I think they mentioned it before that. Anyhow, here?s the piece from 2017:

https://www.lifeextension.com/Magazine/2017/4/Metformin-Slashes-Cancer-Risks/Page-01

They mention benefits aside from cancer prevention.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 10 17:30:24 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 12:30:24 -0500
Subject: [ExI] book on parasites
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbLYhGDBG6nfcUMnY7n1X9HUNniGgfNfQSOUa6oGesp+Q@mail.gmail.com>

I have been a big fan of reading about microbes since the early 70s - Life
On Man.

This is Your Brain on Parasites -Kathleen Mcauliffe)   This is a very
superior book on them.  And if you still harbor any ideas that we have free
will, you can toss them into your past.  I will give some examples:

Here's one:  during the first month of pregnancy the woman's body lowers
her immune system so that it doesn't reject the embryo (embryo as
parasite!).  The hormone also does this:  it increases the woman's disgust
level, making her emotional in excess of normal, so that she is more
careful about germs than she was before she was pregnant.  All unconscious.

Don't miss this one if you can.

bill w
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From tara at taramayastales.com  Sun Mar 10 17:45:20 2019
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 10:45:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] book on parasites
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbLYhGDBG6nfcUMnY7n1X9HUNniGgfNfQSOUa6oGesp+Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbLYhGDBG6nfcUMnY7n1X9HUNniGgfNfQSOUa6oGesp+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <B7A6EB55-61B3-4837-BC52-7EC4E868E22D@taramayastales.com>

The process may be unconscious, but believe me, the pregnant woman is conscious of feeling grossed out by many foods and smells! And in my experience, she may also be a little too vocal in letting her spouse know exactly how she feels.

Thanks for the recommend, I love those books too.



> On Mar 10, 2019, at 10:30 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have been a big fan of reading about microbes since the early 70s - Life On Man.  
> 
> This is Your Brain on Parasites -Kathleen Mcauliffe)   This is a very superior book on them.  And if you still harbor any ideas that we have free will, you can toss them into your past.  I will give some examples:
> 
> Here's one:  during the first month of pregnancy the woman's body lowers her immune system so that it doesn't reject the embryo (embryo as parasite!).  The hormone also does this:  it increases the woman's disgust level, making her emotional in excess of normal, so that she is more careful about germs than she was before she was pregnant.  All unconscious.
> 
> Don't miss this one if you can.
> 
> bill w  
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

Tara Maya
Blog <http://taramayastales.blogspot.com/>  |  Twitter <https://twitter.com/taramayastales>  |  Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Unfinished-Song-Epic-Fantasy/310271375658211?ref=hl>  |  Amazon <http://www.amazon.com/Tara-Maya/e/B004HAI038/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1349796143&sr=8-2-ent>  |  Goodreads <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2951879.Tara_Maya>



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From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar 11 15:53:24 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 08:53:24 -0700
Subject: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
Message-ID: <007101d4d822$900c9b60$b025d220$@rainier66.com>

 

I am not a lawyer, but our Big Rip discussion has me thinking overtime in
overdrive.

 

If one hangs out on Quora or any of the other social commentary sites, one
can get a good amateur-level education in anything, including law, with
commentary by lawyers offered free.

 

Although I didn't see anyone suggest it, an idea occurred to me.  A case
comes up where a big rich cherry-red lawsuit target does something to harm a
penniless nobody, perhaps a news agency singling out a child with a
questionable story.  Now a lawyer agrees to represent the child in a lawsuit
for a contingency, nothing if he gets nothing, a third of the take if he
wins (I think that is a common standard today.)

 

OK then.

 

Suppose a case is being watched by a lot of people.  The lawyer who takes
the case is gambling: he still has to pay his people.  But we can think of a
payoff matrix: the lawyer might make yakkity yak dollars in such and such
years from now, or bla bla dollars in urka urk years from now, etc.  Create
a payoff matrix, cross product with time to payoff matrix, get a present
worth vector which can be (in an engineering sense) reduced to a scalar.  We
can (kinda sorta) claim that a client this lawyer just took on is "worth"
(in a sense) a specific number of present-day dollars, based on one's
estimated payout and time matrices.  Ja?

 

OK, the law firm might go broke before the case is adjudicated, so if we
have a law firm with a (scalar) net worth of say 30 million bucks but has no
income (because the 30 million figure is predicated on his entire firm
working that case) and a 2 million a year payroll, then the probability of
that firm going under before it gets its potential pay is considerable.

 

What if. there was a way (or perhaps there already is a way) to buy the
equivalent of stock in a law firm?  Investors can keep the firm afloat and
keep its staff paid while they work on the case.  That would create a money
equivalent to the breezy verbiage on Quora where people are guessing at the
value of a civil case.

 

Law hipsters among us please: can a person buy stock in a law firm?

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Mar 11 16:38:23 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 11:38:23 -0500
Subject: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
In-Reply-To: <007101d4d822$900c9b60$b025d220$@rainier66.com>
References: <007101d4d822$900c9b60$b025d220$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYjF5tO87Qac27Z5hSnd2OYErxY5x35Yo=_a2kC58gY4g@mail.gmail.com>

I found something!  Sharksavers.org

bill w

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 10:58 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> I am not a lawyer, but our Big Rip discussion has me thinking overtime in
> overdrive.
>
>
>
> If one hangs out on Quora or any of the other social commentary sites, one
> can get a good amateur-level education in anything, including law, with
> commentary by lawyers offered free.
>
>
>
> Although I didn?t see anyone suggest it, an idea occurred to me.  A case
> comes up where a big rich cherry-red lawsuit target does something to harm
> a penniless nobody, perhaps a news agency singling out a child with a
> questionable story.  Now a lawyer agrees to represent the child in a
> lawsuit for a contingency, nothing if he gets nothing, a third of the take
> if he wins (I think that is a common standard today.)
>
>
>
> OK then.
>
>
>
> Suppose a case is being watched by a lot of people.  The lawyer who takes
> the case is gambling: he still has to pay his people.  But we can think of
> a payoff matrix: the lawyer might make yakkity yak dollars in such and such
> years from now, or bla bla dollars in urka urk years from now, etc.  Create
> a payoff matrix, cross product with time to payoff matrix, get a present
> worth vector which can be (in an engineering sense) reduced to a scalar.
> We can (kinda sorta) claim that a client this lawyer just took on is
> ?worth? (in a sense) a specific number of present-day dollars, based on
> one?s estimated payout and time matrices.  Ja?
>
>
>
> OK, the law firm might go broke before the case is adjudicated, so if we
> have a law firm with a (scalar) net worth of say 30 million bucks but has
> no income (because the 30 million figure is predicated on his entire firm
> working that case) and a 2 million a year payroll, then the probability of
> that firm going under before it gets its potential pay is considerable.
>
>
>
> What if? there was a way (or perhaps there already is a way) to buy the
> equivalent of stock in a law firm?  Investors can keep the firm afloat and
> keep its staff paid while they work on the case.  That would create a money
> equivalent to the breezy verbiage on Quora where people are guessing at the
> value of a civil case.
>
>
>
> Law hipsters among us please: can a person buy stock in a law firm?
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar 11 17:00:59 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 10:00:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYjF5tO87Qac27Z5hSnd2OYErxY5x35Yo=_a2kC58gY4g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <007101d4d822$900c9b60$b025d220$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYjF5tO87Qac27Z5hSnd2OYErxY5x35Yo=_a2kC58gY4g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00d401d4d82c$0163def0$042b9cd0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

>>?What if? there was a way (or perhaps there already is a way) to buy the equivalent of stock in a law firm?  Investors can keep the firm afloat and keep its staff paid while they work on the case.  That would create a money equivalent to the breezy verbiage on Quora where people are guessing at the value of a civil case.

>>?Law hipsters among us please: can a person buy stock in a law firm?

spike

 

 

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases

 

I found something!  Sharksavers.org

 

bill w

 

 

 

?heeeeeeeeeeeeeheheheheheheheheeeeeeeeeeeeeehehehehehehheeeeeeeeeeee?

 

BillW, you had me going there.  I fell for it.  {8^D

 

Think about it, business hipsters!  There is a buttload of money to be made: create a ?stock exchange? where a law firm can set up common shares for a particular case, then sell their shares as needed to keep the firm afloat while they work a case.

 

Oh we could get crazy rich off of this: we set up the exchange, charge the firm 1% of their stock to handle their transactions (as Predict_It does) so the law firm starts with 99%, then we charge the ?stock? buyers and sellers 1% for transaction fees.  Then, as the case whipsaws in the press, it stimulates sales, so the ?house? makes money both ways.

 

There is a prominent case in the news where a citizen is suing a news agency.  I read the comments on Quora and see there is a huuuuge diversity of opinion on the merits of the case, many of these opinions written by actual lawyers and people who sound hip on civil law.  Any time there is a wide diversity of opinion, there is money to be made on people willing to put their money where their mouth is.  It is like a specialized version of Predict_It.  Oh there?s money to be made here I tells ya!

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Mar 11 17:57:09 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 12:57:09 -0500
Subject: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
In-Reply-To: <00d401d4d82c$0163def0$042b9cd0$@rainier66.com>
References: <007101d4d822$900c9b60$b025d220$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYjF5tO87Qac27Z5hSnd2OYErxY5x35Yo=_a2kC58gY4g@mail.gmail.com>
 <00d401d4d82c$0163def0$042b9cd0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZShE1Y7Gjc0cPm=bmvky6w=Q+JP0_4cbcpZs+46Nkt=w@mail.gmail.com>

Consider the American *law firm* and its peculiar partnership-based capital
structure. Every state in the US prohibits outside *investment* in *law
firms* by blocking lawyers from sharing profits with non-lawyers. ...
Partners in *law firms* don't have permanent equity, so they forfeit their
capital when they retire.May 17, 2016  bill w   first page of Google search

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 12:06 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> >>?What if? there was a way (or perhaps there already is a way) to buy the
> equivalent of stock in a law firm?  Investors can keep the firm afloat and
> keep its staff paid while they work on the case.  That would create a money
> equivalent to the breezy verbiage on Quora where people are guessing at the
> value of a civil case.
>
> >>?Law hipsters among us please: can a person buy stock in a law firm?
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
>
>
>
> I found something!  Sharksavers.org
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ?heeeeeeeeeeeeeheheheheheheheheeeeeeeeeeeeeehehehehehehheeeeeeeeeeee?
>
>
>
> BillW, you had me going there.  I fell for it.  {8^D
>
>
>
> Think about it, business hipsters!  There is a buttload of money to be
> made: create a ?stock exchange? where a law firm can set up common shares
> for a particular case, then sell their shares as needed to keep the firm
> afloat while they work a case.
>
>
>
> Oh we could get crazy rich off of this: we set up the exchange, charge the
> firm 1% of their stock to handle their transactions (as Predict_It does) so
> the law firm starts with 99%, then we charge the ?stock? buyers and sellers
> 1% for transaction fees.  Then, as the case whipsaws in the press, it
> stimulates sales, so the ?house? makes money both ways.
>
>
>
> There is a prominent case in the news where a citizen is suing a news
> agency.  I read the comments on Quora and see there is a huuuuge diversity
> of opinion on the merits of the case, many of these opinions written by
> actual lawyers and people who sound hip on civil law.  Any time there is a
> wide diversity of opinion, there is money to be made on people willing to
> put their money where their mouth is.  It is like a specialized version of
> Predict_It.  Oh there?s money to be made here I tells ya!
>
>
>
> 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 dan_ust at yahoo.com  Mon Mar 11 18:55:31 2019
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 11:55:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Not so much stuff to bump into in the outer solar system
Message-ID: <A75D6A60-A8E0-4AAF-86CF-699734CF95E6@yahoo.com>

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1902/1902.10795.pdf

This is very interesting. TL; DR: examining craters on Pluto and Charon shows a lack of smaller impacts. This seems to mean the Kuiper Belt lacks smaller objects as compared with the Asteroid Belt.  

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 12 00:27:51 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 17:27:51 -0700
Subject: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZShE1Y7Gjc0cPm=bmvky6w=Q+JP0_4cbcpZs+46Nkt=w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <007101d4d822$900c9b60$b025d220$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYjF5tO87Qac27Z5hSnd2OYErxY5x35Yo=_a2kC58gY4g@mail.gmail.com>
 <00d401d4d82c$0163def0$042b9cd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZShE1Y7Gjc0cPm=bmvky6w=Q+JP0_4cbcpZs+46Nkt=w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004401d4d86a$6ddeadb0$499c0910$@rainier66.com>

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases

 

Consider the American law firm and its peculiar partnership-based capital structure. Every state in the US prohibits outside investment in law firms by blocking lawyers from sharing profits with non-lawyers. ... Partners in law firms don't have permanent equity, so they forfeit their capital when they retire.May 17, 2016  bill w   first page of Google search

 

 

That makes perfect sense.  If it were otherwise, it would be impossible to assemble a fair jury.

 

As we get deeper into the information age, we can pass information around without detection.  Juries could get in cahoots and line up for payouts.

 

The Predict_It site gives us the opportunity to bet on the outcome of a case, but really what I was hoping for was a way to invest in it, which is similar in a way but distinct.

 

spike

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 12 01:04:22 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 20:04:22 -0500
Subject: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
In-Reply-To: <004401d4d86a$6ddeadb0$499c0910$@rainier66.com>
References: <007101d4d822$900c9b60$b025d220$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYjF5tO87Qac27Z5hSnd2OYErxY5x35Yo=_a2kC58gY4g@mail.gmail.com>
 <00d401d4d82c$0163def0$042b9cd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZShE1Y7Gjc0cPm=bmvky6w=Q+JP0_4cbcpZs+46Nkt=w@mail.gmail.com>
 <004401d4d86a$6ddeadb0$499c0910$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa1TVbUqZDVwiYcfR0LvGZEkPHe=ELc=L6w8jSZ1t4SYw@mail.gmail.com>

The Predict_It site gives us the opportunity to bet on the outcome of a
case, but really what I was hoping for was a way to invest in it, which is
similar in a way but distinct.

 spike

I was only able to invest a few times, and those times informed me that the
word 'distinct' above may not apply.  bill w

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 7:33 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
>
>
>
> Consider the American *law firm* and its peculiar partnership-based
> capital structure. Every state in the US prohibits outside *investment*
>  in *law firms* by blocking lawyers from sharing profits with
> non-lawyers. ... Partners in *law firms* don't have permanent equity, so
> they forfeit their capital when they retire.May 17, 2016  bill w   first
> page of Google search
>
>
>
>
>
> That makes perfect sense.  If it were otherwise, it would be impossible to
> assemble a fair jury.
>
>
>
> As we get deeper into the information age, we can pass information around
> without detection.  Juries could get in cahoots and line up for payouts.
>
>
>
> The Predict_It site gives us the opportunity to bet on the outcome of a
> case, but really what I was hoping for was a way to invest in it, which is
> similar in a way but distinct.
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 12 01:24:45 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2019 18:24:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa1TVbUqZDVwiYcfR0LvGZEkPHe=ELc=L6w8jSZ1t4SYw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <007101d4d822$900c9b60$b025d220$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYjF5tO87Qac27Z5hSnd2OYErxY5x35Yo=_a2kC58gY4g@mail.gmail.com>
 <00d401d4d82c$0163def0$042b9cd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZShE1Y7Gjc0cPm=bmvky6w=Q+JP0_4cbcpZs+46Nkt=w@mail.gmail.com>
 <004401d4d86a$6ddeadb0$499c0910$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEa1TVbUqZDVwiYcfR0LvGZEkPHe=ELc=L6w8jSZ1t4SYw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001c01d4d872$61066f30$23134d90$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 6:04 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] stock sales on legal cases

 

The Predict_It site gives us the opportunity to bet on the outcome of a case, but really what I was hoping for was a way to invest in it, which is similar in a way but distinct.

 spike

I was only able to invest a few times, and those times informed me that the word 'distinct' above may not apply.  bill w

 

 

Ja it was a poor choice of words.  In Predict_It lets you win up to a factor of 100 if you buy shares at a penny a share, then your longshot pans out, but this other idea I had would keep the sharks fed while they go for the longshot cases.

In retrospect, perhaps this is an example of a really really bad idea.  Reasoning: if one imagines life a coupla hundred years ago, everything mechanical, everything muscle, everybody busy.  Picture a town: this guy is sawing wood, that guy is slaying and carving up a hog, the other guy is plowing, etc, nearly all the women and children working at creating something.  The butcher, baker, candlestick maker, everybody busy doing something that creates some form of wealth with few exceptions.  There is a few ministers, who themselves probably kept busy working on some form of value.

Compare that today.  Plenty of people do nothing to create new wealth.  There is unimaginable quantities of existing wealth.  So? we now have so many whose occupation is mostly redistributing the wealth that already exists.

Over time, the fraction of people who are only redistributing existing wealth increases.  If there was a way to invest in civil cases, we would end up increasing that fraction even faster.  We would feed the lawsuit industry.

OK never mind.  No buttload of money for me, damn.

spike

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From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 12 16:01:39 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 09:01:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
Message-ID: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>

 

Cool!  

 

https://www.wired.com/story/zuckerberg-wants-facebook-to-build-mind-reading-
machine/

 

This brings up an uncomfortable question however.  The mainstream press
keeps saying this whole concept is creepy.  Any time I see anything I
consider wicked cool, the mainstream press calls it creepy.  That doesn't
look good for the old Spikemeister.

 

However, I want this anyway.  If FB can get this to work, I want to know
what is going on in here.  If I have a way to find out, I can tell myself.
A long time ago, Socrates suggested: know thyself.  OK cool, now we can. 

 

Then we can rig up some kind of automated recording/archiving system which
we can carry along with us.  Then I can answer a question I have often asked
myself: what, if anything, was I thinking?

 

spike

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From dsunley at gmail.com  Tue Mar 12 18:12:55 2019
From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 12:12:55 -0600
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAEptUkQSxgDQC0-1CBM8jhAf_4EUE6FY5qkdSMDUngHKMJrG8g@mail.gmail.com>

Sometimes [ok, always!] I worry about this civilization. "Advertising
company wants to build mind-reading machine so they can charge a premium
rate for extremely targeted advertising" is almost equivalent to what SMBC
had to say about Ghostbusters:

"Ghostbusters is the most American movie ever made. People discover that
there's life after death, so they start a small business and cash in. <...>
This is a film where the afterlife is proven to be real, yet there's an
entire scene devoted to salary negotiation."

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-most-american-movie

"

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 10:06 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> Cool!
>
>
>
>
> https://www.wired.com/story/zuckerberg-wants-facebook-to-build-mind-reading-machine/
>
>
>
> This brings up an uncomfortable question however.  The mainstream press
> keeps saying this whole concept is creepy.  Any time I see anything I
> consider wicked cool, the mainstream press calls it creepy.  That doesn?t
> look good for the old Spikemeister.
>
>
>
> However, I want this anyway.  If FB can get this to work, I want to know
> what is going on in here.  If I have a way to find out, I can tell myself.
> A long time ago, Socrates suggested: know thyself.  OK cool, now we can.
>
>
>
> Then we can rig up some kind of automated recording/archiving system which
> we can carry along with us.  Then I can answer a question I have often
> asked myself: what, if anything, was I thinking?
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 12 18:37:05 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 11:37:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAEptUkQSxgDQC0-1CBM8jhAf_4EUE6FY5qkdSMDUngHKMJrG8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAEptUkQSxgDQC0-1CBM8jhAf_4EUE6FY5qkdSMDUngHKMJrG8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001601d4d902$98529d20$c8f7d760$@rainier66.com>

>?"Ghostbusters is the most American movie ever made. People discover that there's life after death, so they start a small business and cash in. <...> This is a film where the afterlife is proven to be real, yet there's an entire scene devoted to salary negotiation."

 

 

Oh MAN Darin, what an idea!  How could I have overlooked it?

 

We corner the market on these mind-reading things, create targeted advertising from which we make a buttload, market them to the common woman as a device which will answer the old What Was I Thinking question, make a second buttload on that!

 

There is serious money to be made here.  You and I need to be business partners, partner.  You handle marketing, I will do? hmmm? capital management.

 

spike

 

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From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Mar 12 18:41:39 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 11:41:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRd-n-pdkDAp1tRp5sA1_zSa6RHSK8ek8bOhnEruzozUg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 9:06 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> This brings up an uncomfortable question however.  The mainstream press keeps saying this whole concept is creepy.  Any time I see anything I consider wicked cool, the mainstream press calls it creepy.  That doesn?t look good for the old Spikemeister.

Nah, it looks worse for the mainstream press.

> However, I want this anyway.  If FB can get this to work, I want to know what is going on in here.  If I have a way to find out, I can tell myself.  A long time ago, Socrates suggested: know thyself.  OK cool, now we can.

Ehhh...I'm not sure FB is capable of getting this to work.

This is distinct from the question of whether it could work at all,
given an optimal team.  I'm just not certain FB is culturally capable
of acquiring and assembling the needed expertise, and giving them the
resources they need to make it work while not giving them the
anti-resources that make failure far more likely.

> Then we can rig up some kind of automated recording/archiving system which we can carry along with us.  Then I can answer a question I have often asked myself: what, if anything, was I thinking?

That "if anything" alludes to the more important question: were you
thinking?  Can this distinguish between those with active minds and
those who allow themselves to stop rationally considering what they
perceive?


From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 12 18:46:20 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 11:46:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAEptUkQSxgDQC0-1CBM8jhAf_4EUE6FY5qkdSMDUngHKMJrG8g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAEptUkQSxgDQC0-1CBM8jhAf_4EUE6FY5qkdSMDUngHKMJrG8g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <000e01d4d903$e3085390$a918fab0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Darin Sunley
Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

 

 

 

 

>?Sometimes [ok, always!] I worry about this civilization. "Advertising company wants to build mind-reading machine so they can charge a premium rate for extremely targeted advertising" ?

 

 

Some of you internet hipsters please offer a take on this.

 

Last spring, I was with my family on a road trip.  We have a mobile hotspot on my phone; my son was using it to do some internet game.  We stopped for fuel at the Columbia River Gorge where they have installed all those wind turbines.  At the fuel stop, I noticed the zipper had broken on my hoodie, and asked my bride if it was easily fixable, or perhaps I would just buy a new one, since hoodies don?t cost much.  At that same gas stop, I pointed out the wind turbines and explained to my son how they work.

 

We drove on to our campground.  I logged on to the internet.  The side panels of my sites were filled with advertisements which they always are, but these were for? hoodies and wind turbine parts.

 

I don?t recall ever, before or since, getting advertisements for wind turbine parts.  I might have at some point gotten advertisements for hoodies and not noticed.  But those wind turbine parts caught my attention.

 

Could it be there is something on that phone listening, doing speech to text and marketing to me already?

 

If so, oh that is so damn creepy wicked cool, I am really really pissed I didn?t think of it first.

 

spike

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From dsunley at gmail.com  Tue Mar 12 19:14:29 2019
From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 13:14:29 -0600
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRd-n-pdkDAp1tRp5sA1_zSa6RHSK8ek8bOhnEruzozUg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNRd-n-pdkDAp1tRp5sA1_zSa6RHSK8ek8bOhnEruzozUg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEptUkSfE49vfWwTC6fZJnR-oSPHgUx5_7=VwhhqJAmJMooXNQ@mail.gmail.com>

Lol. I'm not sure I'm the guy for marketing. But yeah, there's a definitely
a serious professed lack of imagination happening there that is barely
credible, coming from such smart people. Like, you're seriously proposing
to put together a world-class research team to develop a technology that,
if successful, would change the most basic assumptions underlying the
entire edifice of laws and ethics that western civilization is built on,
and your plan is to use it for targeted advertising!? That's like using a
supercomputer for a space heater and night light! Or using Sauron's ring
just to turn invisible and eavesdrop on your neighbors!

Some relatively small number of years from now Facebook is going to be an
AGI with a Dunbar's number in the high 9 digits, that is close, personal
friends with everyone on the planet simultaneously, and the human
figureheads will still be mostly blathering about how revolutionary this is
for the advertising business. It'll literally be Friendship is Optimal,
only without the ponies.

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 12:53 PM Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 9:06 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> > This brings up an uncomfortable question however.  The mainstream press
> keeps saying this whole concept is creepy.  Any time I see anything I
> consider wicked cool, the mainstream press calls it creepy.  That doesn?t
> look good for the old Spikemeister.
>
> Nah, it looks worse for the mainstream press.
>
> > However, I want this anyway.  If FB can get this to work, I want to know
> what is going on in here.  If I have a way to find out, I can tell myself.
> A long time ago, Socrates suggested: know thyself.  OK cool, now we can.
>
> Ehhh...I'm not sure FB is capable of getting this to work.
>
> This is distinct from the question of whether it could work at all,
> given an optimal team.  I'm just not certain FB is culturally capable
> of acquiring and assembling the needed expertise, and giving them the
> resources they need to make it work while not giving them the
> anti-resources that make failure far more likely.
>
> > Then we can rig up some kind of automated recording/archiving system
> which we can carry along with us.  Then I can answer a question I have
> often asked myself: what, if anything, was I thinking?
>
> That "if anything" alludes to the more important question: were you
> thinking?  Can this distinguish between those with active minds and
> those who allow themselves to stop rationally considering what they
> perceive?
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 12 19:43:16 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 12:43:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRd-n-pdkDAp1tRp5sA1_zSa6RHSK8ek8bOhnEruzozUg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNRd-n-pdkDAp1tRp5sA1_zSa6RHSK8ek8bOhnEruzozUg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003901d4d90b$d6d52eb0$847f8c10$@rainier66.com>




>>... Then we can rig up some kind of automated recording/archiving system which we can carry along with us.  Then I can answer a question I have often asked myself: what, if anything, was I thinking?

>...That "if anything" alludes to the more important question: were you thinking?  Can this distinguish between those with active minds and those who allow themselves to stop rationally considering what they perceive?...

_______________________________________________

Good questions, all.  Your old Uncle Spike will attempt an explanation.

>>... A long time ago, Socrates suggested: Know thyself... Socrates

The British have a charming way of speaking going way back to even before that Shakespeare guy who was so good at it.  Back in the really olden days when those British lads were writing the bible, Peter, Paul, John, James, those boys really perfected it.  Their way of speaking is a highly effective use of subtle understatement, such as when King Arthur's enemy expressed his utter revulsion and disdain by commenting: I fart in your general direction!

Ooooh, got em!  It triggered a war.  Oy vey.

A biblical example would be right up front there in Genesis 4:1 where it says "Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain..."

Ah.  He knew her.  OK so, the comment is disarming in its polite understated way, and we get the picture.

The old time philosopher Socrates was debating one of his students, and a British scribe was there writing it all down.  Becoming annoyed with the impertinent lad, the gentle Greek philosopher found a polished British way to tell him: Fuck thyself.

Needless to say, the student failed to get an A in Socrates' class that semester.  {8^D

Hey, I was there.  I saw, I heard.  My young friends, it's one of the advantages of being old.  One knows a lotta this kind of trivia.

OK enough clowning for one day.  Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

spike







From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 12 19:55:13 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 14:55:13 -0500
Subject: [ExI] parasites example
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEb=cdDTUw3fXpWhv2QKbJtauL_im4afwxPUL66XH+yZ_w@mail.gmail.com>

Two kinds infesting dogs and cats:  toxoplasma, and toxocara, the latter
involving mostly dogs.  You are likely aware of the need to keep a pregnant
woman away from cat litter - that's toxoplasma.

The Center for Disease Control has amassed huge amounts of data used in the
study.

Four thousand people from six to 16, infected and not infected, were given
a big battery of tests.  The infected kids, compared to age-matched
controls, were lower in math, reading, verbal recall, visuo-spatial
reasoning and IQ.  International Journal for Parisitology.

The authors controlled for socioeconomic status, gender, education, gender,
ethnicity, and levels of lead in the blood.

Of the African-American kids 23% were infected.  Mexican - 13%; whites 11%.

"This implies that disadvantaged minorities may do worse in school not only
because of well-known factors like nutrition and inferior education, but
also, possibly because of parasites in their heads."

I would not hesitate to call these findings momentous.

Some relevant kinds of data from Africa also included in this book.

What kind of parasites are in your brain?  Read the book.
Kathleen Mcauliffe - This is Your Brain on Parasites.

bill w
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From jrd1415 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 12 20:54:20 2019
From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 13:54:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Human health catastrophe, was Re: Book on Parasites
Message-ID: <CAHUTwkPtqZnmtv1v-_nhn4rqYPWwpe6SFFLxmjkasK2eN63N_A@mail.gmail.com>

A bit of good news to brighten your day.

In referencing the microbial community, rather than the disparaging term
'parasites', perhaps 'inventory' or 'resource' might be more apt.

In1942, the 'miracle' drug penicillin launched the antibiotic era.  In the
ensuing ninety years, the development of new antibiotics, their
ever-increasing use promoted by the tragically misguided notion that
"bacteria are bad, and antibiotics are good", has ***POISONED*** the human
microbiome worldwide.  Combined with the sterilization of the human living
environment, this has resulted in a worldwide human health catastrophe.

The lower bowel is an immune system organ, containing 90% (I've read this,
but can't vouch for the numbers) of the cells of the human immune system.

The human body is an ecosystem. The microbiome is a vital part of that
system that has co-evolved with its host organism, over the 650 million
years since the Cambrian explosion, so as to maintain the host in an
****optimal**** state of health.

I would suggest that the plague of ***ALL*** the 'mysterious' auto-immune
diseases with 'unknown' causes -- asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, MS,
obesity/type2 diabetes -- along with those gastrointestinal disorders --
Crohn's disease, IBS, ulcerative colitis, and C. diff infections(proven) --
are the result of the destruction of the human microbiome by the widespread
use of antibiotics.  And this has been worsened by the sterilization of the
human living space -- particularly urban -- which clears out the natural
microbial population, preventing both the initial colonization of the young
and limiting opportunity for subsequent recolonization following antibiotic
destruction.

The bad news is that nearly the entire human world population, excepting
primitive peoples too remote for access to modern medicine, have had, or
are on course to having, their health massively damaged.  The good news is
that both the prevention and quite possibly the cure for this human health
catastrophe, is cheap, easy, and immediately at hand. It is not beyond
hoping that humanity could be poised on the brink of an unprecedented
lifting of the burden of all manner of quality-of-life-destroying disease.

If you poll the list of references in the paper linked below, you will find
that the preponderance of research on the microbiome has taken place in
only the last dozen or so years.  This is, astonishingly, only just
recently a "Eureka! moment" for human health science.

I am hopeful of the very real possibility of huge near term improvements in
human health/quality of life, accompanied by improved prosperity from
substantial reductions in health care costs: health care costs for healthy
people are way less than for sick people.  (Well, duh!)

An ecological and evolutionary perspective on human?microbe mutualism and
disease

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5902740_Dethlefsen_L_McFall-Ngai_M_Relman_DA_An_ecological_and_evolutionary_perspective_on_human-microbe_mutualism_and_disease_Nature_449_811-818

--

There is a great deal more to this story, and here is where it almost goes
into ye olde conspiracy theory.  In 2013, the FDA issued a decision
prohibiting any licensed health care professional from administering either
the cure or the preventive protocol.  Do you believe it?!  It seems like
the FDA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the big pharma and the health
insurance business, and they want to protect their revenue stream ***BY
KEEPING EVERYONE SICK!!***.  I don't think it's intentional, but rather a
confirmation of Upton Sinclair's observation:

"*It is difficult to get a man to understand
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Understand> something, when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it!*"

Good luck, Jeff Davis

          "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                                                Ray Charles
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 12 21:22:28 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 16:22:28 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Human health catastrophe, was Re: Book on Parasites
In-Reply-To: <CAHUTwkPtqZnmtv1v-_nhn4rqYPWwpe6SFFLxmjkasK2eN63N_A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkPtqZnmtv1v-_nhn4rqYPWwpe6SFFLxmjkasK2eN63N_A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaBr7RJ_jKtzq6gMvLxvPgWd9os30yjsAJnpObtLzgDWA@mail.gmail.com>

In referencing the microbial community, rather than the disparaging term
'parasites', perhaps 'inventory' or 'resource' might be more apt.  Jeff
Davis



On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 3:59 PM Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:

> A bit of good news to brighten your day.
>
> In referencing the microbial community, rather than the disparaging term
> 'parasites', perhaps 'inventory' or 'resource' might be more apt.
>
> In1942, the 'miracle' drug penicillin launched the antibiotic era.  In the
> ensuing ninety years, the development of new antibiotics, their
> ever-increasing use promoted by the tragically misguided notion that
> "bacteria are bad, and antibiotics are good", has ***POISONED*** the human
> microbiome worldwide.  Combined with the sterilization of the human living
> environment, this has resulted in a worldwide human health catastrophe.
>
> The lower bowel is an immune system organ, containing 90% (I've read this,
> but can't vouch for the numbers) of the cells of the human immune system.
>
> The human body is an ecosystem. The microbiome is a vital part of that
> system that has co-evolved with its host organism, over the 650 million
> years since the Cambrian explosion, so as to maintain the host in an
> ****optimal**** state of health.
>
> I would suggest that the plague of ***ALL*** the 'mysterious' auto-immune
> diseases with 'unknown' causes -- asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, MS,
> obesity/type2 diabetes -- along with those gastrointestinal disorders --
> Crohn's disease, IBS, ulcerative colitis, and C. diff infections(proven) --
> are the result of the destruction of the human microbiome by the widespread
> use of antibiotics.  And this has been worsened by the sterilization of the
> human living space -- particularly urban -- which clears out the natural
> microbial population, preventing both the initial colonization of the young
> and limiting opportunity for subsequent recolonization following antibiotic
> destruction.
>
> The bad news is that nearly the entire human world population, excepting
> primitive peoples too remote for access to modern medicine, have had, or
> are on course to having, their health massively damaged.  The good news is
> that both the prevention and quite possibly the cure for this human health
> catastrophe, is cheap, easy, and immediately at hand. It is not beyond
> hoping that humanity could be poised on the brink of an unprecedented
> lifting of the burden of all manner of quality-of-life-destroying disease.
>
> If you poll the list of references in the paper linked below, you will
> find that the preponderance of research on the microbiome has taken place
> in only the last dozen or so years.  This is, astonishingly, only just
> recently a "Eureka! moment" for human health science.
>
> I am hopeful of the very real possibility of huge near term improvements
> in human health/quality of life, accompanied by improved prosperity from
> substantial reductions in health care costs: health care costs for healthy
> people are way less than for sick people.  (Well, duh!)
>
> An ecological and evolutionary perspective on human?microbe mutualism and
> disease
>
>
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5902740_Dethlefsen_L_McFall-Ngai_M_Relman_DA_An_ecological_and_evolutionary_perspective_on_human-microbe_mutualism_and_disease_Nature_449_811-818
>
> --
>
> There is a great deal more to this story, and here is where it almost goes
> into ye olde conspiracy theory.  In 2013, the FDA issued a decision
> prohibiting any licensed health care professional from administering either
> the cure or the preventive protocol.  Do you believe it?!  It seems like
> the FDA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the big pharma and the health
> insurance business, and they want to protect their revenue stream ***BY
> KEEPING EVERYONE SICK!!***.  I don't think it's intentional, but rather a
> confirmation of Upton Sinclair's observation:
>
> "*It is difficult to get a man to understand
> <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Understand> something, when his salary
> depends upon his not understanding it!*"
>
> Good luck, Jeff Davis
>
>           "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
>                                                 Ray Charles
> _______________________________________________
> 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 Mar 12 21:26:21 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 16:26:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Fwd:  Human health catastrophe, was Re: Book on Parasites
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaBr7RJ_jKtzq6gMvLxvPgWd9os30yjsAJnpObtLzgDWA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkPtqZnmtv1v-_nhn4rqYPWwpe6SFFLxmjkasK2eN63N_A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaBr7RJ_jKtzq6gMvLxvPgWd9os30yjsAJnpObtLzgDWA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZdU2KLC0sSpvqQ2-D99TKx9rBAvMDucnYeYqYQDP64QQ@mail.gmail.com>

In referencing the microbial community, rather than the disparaging term
'parasites', perhaps 'inventory' or 'resource' might be more apt.  Jeff
Davis

The book says that a particular species of microbe might be a helper
(symbiont), harmless freeloader (commensal), or a hurter (parasite).  So
yes, we need to be more specific than 'parasite' or 'microbe'.  1400
species that we know of inhabit our bodies..

Loads of research needed.

bill w

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Human health catastrophe, was Re: Book on Parasites
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>


In referencing the microbial community, rather than the disparaging term
'parasites', perhaps 'inventory' or 'resource' might be more apt.  Jeff
Davis



On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 3:59 PM Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:

> A bit of good news to brighten your day.
>
> In referencing the microbial community, rather than the disparaging term
> 'parasites', perhaps 'inventory' or 'resource' might be more apt.
>
> In1942, the 'miracle' drug penicillin launched the antibiotic era.  In the
> ensuing ninety years, the development of new antibiotics, their
> ever-increasing use promoted by the tragically misguided notion that
> "bacteria are bad, and antibiotics are good", has ***POISONED*** the human
> microbiome worldwide.  Combined with the sterilization of the human living
> environment, this has resulted in a worldwide human health catastrophe.
>
> The lower bowel is an immune system organ, containing 90% (I've read this,
> but can't vouch for the numbers) of the cells of the human immune system.
>
> The human body is an ecosystem. The microbiome is a vital part of that
> system that has co-evolved with its host organism, over the 650 million
> years since the Cambrian explosion, so as to maintain the host in an
> ****optimal**** state of health.
>
> I would suggest that the plague of ***ALL*** the 'mysterious' auto-immune
> diseases with 'unknown' causes -- asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, MS,
> obesity/type2 diabetes -- along with those gastrointestinal disorders --
> Crohn's disease, IBS, ulcerative colitis, and C. diff infections(proven) --
> are the result of the destruction of the human microbiome by the widespread
> use of antibiotics.  And this has been worsened by the sterilization of the
> human living space -- particularly urban -- which clears out the natural
> microbial population, preventing both the initial colonization of the young
> and limiting opportunity for subsequent recolonization following antibiotic
> destruction.
>
> The bad news is that nearly the entire human world population, excepting
> primitive peoples too remote for access to modern medicine, have had, or
> are on course to having, their health massively damaged.  The good news is
> that both the prevention and quite possibly the cure for this human health
> catastrophe, is cheap, easy, and immediately at hand. It is not beyond
> hoping that humanity could be poised on the brink of an unprecedented
> lifting of the burden of all manner of quality-of-life-destroying disease.
>
> If you poll the list of references in the paper linked below, you will
> find that the preponderance of research on the microbiome has taken place
> in only the last dozen or so years.  This is, astonishingly, only just
> recently a "Eureka! moment" for human health science.
>
> I am hopeful of the very real possibility of huge near term improvements
> in human health/quality of life, accompanied by improved prosperity from
> substantial reductions in health care costs: health care costs for healthy
> people are way less than for sick people.  (Well, duh!)
>
> An ecological and evolutionary perspective on human?microbe mutualism and
> disease
>
>
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5902740_Dethlefsen_L_McFall-Ngai_M_Relman_DA_An_ecological_and_evolutionary_perspective_on_human-microbe_mutualism_and_disease_Nature_449_811-818
>
> --
>
> There is a great deal more to this story, and here is where it almost goes
> into ye olde conspiracy theory.  In 2013, the FDA issued a decision
> prohibiting any licensed health care professional from administering either
> the cure or the preventive protocol.  Do you believe it?!  It seems like
> the FDA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the big pharma and the health
> insurance business, and they want to protect their revenue stream ***BY
> KEEPING EVERYONE SICK!!***.  I don't think it's intentional, but rather a
> confirmation of Upton Sinclair's observation:
>
> "*It is difficult to get a man to understand
> <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Understand> something, when his salary
> depends upon his not understanding it!*"
>
> Good luck, Jeff Davis
>
>           "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
>                                                 Ray Charles
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Mar 13 04:20:28 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 21:20:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAEptUkSfE49vfWwTC6fZJnR-oSPHgUx5_7=VwhhqJAmJMooXNQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNRd-n-pdkDAp1tRp5sA1_zSa6RHSK8ek8bOhnEruzozUg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEptUkSfE49vfWwTC6fZJnR-oSPHgUx5_7=VwhhqJAmJMooXNQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTpG-uotE24aehs_sykD+XxUoLw2fp6EHWPMj_iVCyKeA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 12:18 PM Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com> wrote:
> But yeah, there's a definitely a serious professed lack of imagination happening there that is barely credible, coming from such smart people.

Sadly, an all too believable lack of imagination.  Here's the thing:
they've been basically ordered to imagine narrowly, so that's what
they're used to.  They've been ordered to confine their dreams to
simple stuff that is obviously and directly profitable, rather than
chasing ideas that have no immediate connection to corporate profits -
even if some of them might almost transcend profits, making FaceBook
truly indispensable (and able to charge larger rents, accordingly).

One cure is for someone to ask those who give said orders (Zuckerberg,
in this case) to dare to imagine, in a public forum where the question
itself will get reported on until it is not practically ignorable.
Perhaps dream for them, and bring up those dreams as examples - but
only examples, noting that there are more applications.

(To go just a small step from what they have proposed: what about
creating ads?  If these machines can read minds, can they accurately
capture pictures, sound, and animation that we try to envision clearly
enough for the machines to pick up?  What would happen if, instead of
a master spending hours to precisely reproduce mental imagery, anyone
skilled with this machine could do it within minutes of daydreaming
the creative?  Lots of us can dream of things far beyond our ability
to express, so let these machines do all, or almost all, the
mechanical parts of expressing for us.)

Dreams can indeed be quite wild - but only if allowed.

> It'll literally be Friendship is Optimal, only without the ponies.

Ah, good, I'm not the only one here who's at least heard of that.
Sometimes the best fanfiction explores what more mainstream fiction
dares not.

From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Mar 13 07:43:09 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2019 00:43:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Human health catastrophe, was Re: Book on Parasites
In-Reply-To: <CAHUTwkPtqZnmtv1v-_nhn4rqYPWwpe6SFFLxmjkasK2eN63N_A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkPtqZnmtv1v-_nhn4rqYPWwpe6SFFLxmjkasK2eN63N_A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQ5QvpTqUvoHw6SLXS-npBFNXRnZMxzB5UEBYGEX4wA7g@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 1:58 PM Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would suggest that the plague of ***ALL*** the 'mysterious' auto-immune diseases with 'unknown' causes -- asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, MS, obesity/type2 diabetes -- along with those gastrointestinal disorders -- Crohn's disease, IBS, ulcerative colitis, and C. diff infections(proven) -- are the result of the destruction of the human microbiome by the widespread use of antibiotics.

Then how were these conditions around in significant numbers prior to
that?  Not all of them were, granted, but some were.


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 13 16:31:03 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2019 11:31:03 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Human health catastrophe, was Re: Book on Parasites
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQ5QvpTqUvoHw6SLXS-npBFNXRnZMxzB5UEBYGEX4wA7g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHUTwkPtqZnmtv1v-_nhn4rqYPWwpe6SFFLxmjkasK2eN63N_A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQ5QvpTqUvoHw6SLXS-npBFNXRnZMxzB5UEBYGEX4wA7g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbdf596fX3LT9=at569LL0DZkK2HJCoZ4EMkazngRJpOw@mail.gmail.com>

I will let Davis answer that, but I have seen data on primitive tribes
where many of our woes are just unknown.  The standout to me was tooth
decay - practically none in many places.  Several other diseases were
mentioned but I CRS!  Oh, schizophrenia is another - mostly a coastal
thing.  Inland it's very rare.  This is why many think it's a virus or
something contagious - parasites again.  When the Western diet comes to
these places their diseases begin to resemble ours.  And obesity starts.

So they were there in places, but the strong immune systems kept them to a
minimum.  Weaken it with antibiotics...........

bill w

On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 2:47 AM Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 1:58 PM Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I would suggest that the plague of ***ALL*** the 'mysterious'
> auto-immune diseases with 'unknown' causes -- asthma, rheumatoid arthritis,
> MS, obesity/type2 diabetes -- along with those gastrointestinal disorders
> -- Crohn's disease, IBS, ulcerative colitis, and C. diff infections(proven)
> -- are the result of the destruction of the human microbiome by the
> widespread use of antibiotics.
>
> Then how were these conditions around in significant numbers prior to
> that?  Not all of them were, granted, but some were.
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 10:34:49 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:34:49 +0000
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, 12 Mar 2019 at 16:08, <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> Cool!
>
> https://www.wired.com/story/zuckerberg-wants-facebook-to-build-mind-reading-machine/
>
> This brings up an uncomfortable question however.  The mainstream press keeps saying this whole concept is creepy.  Any time I see anything I consider wicked cool, the mainstream press calls it creepy.  That doesn?t look good for the old Spikemeister.
>
> However, I want this anyway.  If FB can get this to work, I want to know what is going on in here.  If I have a way to find out, I can tell myself.  A long time ago, Socrates suggested: know thyself.  OK cool, now we can.
>
> Then we can rig up some kind of automated recording/archiving system which we can carry along with us.  Then I can answer a question I have often asked myself: what, if anything, was I thinking?
>

Spike, you often mention the Constitution and the rights of US citizens.
What about the right to remain silent when faced with police questioning?

Officials already try to scan your smartphone whenever they want to.
What if they want to scan your thoughts as well?


BillK


From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 15:11:41 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 08:11:41 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <006201d4da78$3b44ead0$b1cec070$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK

>
> Then we can rig up some kind of automated recording/archiving system which we can carry along with us.  Then I can answer a question I have often asked myself: what, if anything, was I thinking?
>

Spike, you often mention the Constitution and the rights of US citizens.
What about the right to remain silent when faced with police questioning?

Officials already try to scan your smartphone whenever they want to.
What if they want to scan your thoughts as well?


BillK

_______________________________________________


BillK, it is controversial.  The constabulary is already getting a long list of highly effective new technologies, some already in place.

Using mugshot databases and license plate databases, the local constable can run an automated search on the car and the suspect's face at the first encounter, immediately get a list of things the suspect has done.  This makes it a lot safer for the man in blue.

In a small town, the man already knows his regular customers (they really do call them that, along with the endearing term frequent fliers.)  Now big city cops can access all the stuff that the perp did when he was still in the small town.

In my own town, whenever there is a doorstep package thief, a good clear video image is posted online to thousands of people.  Consequently that particular brand of crime has fallen out of fashion.

With DNA databases, the detectives are solving gobs of cold cases.

BillK, to your point: ja as time goes on, we hand more and more tech tools to the authorities.  They advance faster than the bad guys.

Let me ponder and post something later.

spike



From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 16:15:54 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 09:15:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com> 
Message-ID: <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Subject: RE: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK

>>...Spike, you often mention the Constitution and the rights of US citizens.
What about the right to remain silent when faced with police questioning?

>>...Officials already try to scan your smartphone whenever they want to.
What if they want to scan your thoughts as well?  BillK

_______________________________________________


>...BillK, it is controversial.  The constabulary is already getting a long list of highly effective new technologies, some already in place.

>...Let me ponder and post something later.  Spike


OK got something, if you will allow slightly strained analogies.  Use them if they work for you.

Asimov's writings teach us a lot about how technology shapes culture.  Let us take an Asimovian approach to understanding a critical place and time in human history and civilization, the area we now call the Middle East, on the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea.  There was a piece of ground suitable to agriculture, where the wild beasts could be controlled and such, dry but mild climate.  It was at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe.  Important place on the globe was that.

In the old days, there were early agricultural civilizations forming, and civilizations recognizing the advantages of working together in big groups beyond one's family, central governments and so forth.  As in nature, where there are plants, plant eaters evolve, and carnivores evolve.  A civilization equivalent to that would be the agricultural society would be loosely analogous to the vegetarian or grazing beasts.  Then raiding societies evolve, which do not farm land, but go invade existing farm land, kill the inhabitants if they fail to flee, devour their crops, then move on, in a way roughly analogous to the pack of hyenas or pride of lions.

Over time, the agricultural techniques evolve giving those societies more ability to feed themselves, and over time, war tech evolves in the raider societies, since they use it all the time.  They make their living at making war. So they get good at it.  The ag societies learn to build strongholds, such as castles, to store their products.  The raider societies invent catapults and cannons and such.  And so it goes.

In the long run, the defenders advantage goes to the defender (well imagine that (perhaps that is how it got its name.))  Defense is easier than offense.  The defender doesn't need to go anywhere, so he can accumulate his stuff right there.  The attacker has to move everything.

OK cool, now think of how this notion of defenders advantage applies to crime vs enforcement.  For any of this analogy to make a bit of sense requires one to think of law enforcement as the defenders army, with the criminal being the stealth attacker.  We have elements in American society today who tend to promote the view that law enforcement and the citizenry are on opposite sides of a struggle, but I have a hard time with that view of life, for reasons I will share upon request.

In the meantime, I view law enforcement as the defenders army and I am part of the defenders side.

In that view, a critical aspect to be watched very closely is the risk that the defenders army will turn on the defenders, and become the attacker.  Our recent internal struggle at the FBI has my full and undivided attention.  Any nuclear-armed government at war with itself is a cause for concern.  When the top law enforcement agency for a government at war with itself demonstrates any form of corruption, this is a grave cause for concern, for it is no longer clear if the defender's army is still loyal to the defender.

This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority but watch them closely.

spike














From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 16:41:24 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 09:41:24 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>

On Mar 14, 2019, at 9:15 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority but watch them closely. 

That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism. Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have authority over anyone else. (In the case of the police, abolition seems the appropriate libertarian response. Self-identified libertarians who scoff at this are almost certainly not libertarians but simply conservatives posing as libertarians.) And the best defense against the excesses and abuses of any authority is simply not to ever grant authority (over oneself and over others) in the first place. Failing that ? because most folks don?t want to take such a bold stance ? one shouldn?t be so naive as to believe that various authority-approved watchdog measures will somehow work well to curb arbitrary power.   

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 17:07:32 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:07:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:41 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

On Mar 14, 2019, at 9:15 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority but watch them closely. 

That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism. Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have authority over anyone else. (In the case of the police, abolition seems the appropriate libertarian response. Self-identified libertarians who scoff at this are almost certainly not libertarians but simply conservatives posing as libertarians.) And the best defense against the excesses and abuses of any authority is simply not to ever grant authority (over oneself and over others) in the first place. Failing that ? because most folks don?t want to take such a bold stance ? one shouldn?t be so naive as to believe that various authority-approved watchdog measures will somehow work well to curb arbitrary power.   

Regards,

Dan




Dan, your comment demonstrates that the Libertarian party is no more unified, and probably less so, than the two American mainstream parties (which are both so dis-unified no one can really tell what they stand for (do you know? (neither do we.)))  

Within the Libertarian party are those who hold the view that no one should have authority and those who recognize that any no-authority society is at the mercy of the bad guys.  A pragmatic approach to the question results in the lower case l libertarian, often conflated with lower case c conservative, but distinct in my view.

A pragmatic approach recognizes the firm necessity of authority, but also recognizes that power corrupts.  So... power must be very strictly controlled.

We are now seeing a technologically-fueled vast and rapid expansion of surveillance.  We are getting to where home-mounted video is common enough that it is a highly effective tool against any crime which requires the bad guy to physically visit the home of the victim.  Enough citizens have cameras and have offered access to the constables that the bad guy can be tracked right to wherever he went.  The constables aren't publicizing it, but we see the results.  Package theft, so common just five years ago, has taken a nosedive in this area.  The UPS trucks and FedEx trucks seldom have signature-required deliveries anymore.  It is safe enough to leave the packages on the doorstep.  I now buy nearly everything from online retailers and have never had a package stolen.  If it ever happens, I will have good video evidence on the perp from two different angles.

spike





From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 17:29:50 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 12:29:50 -0500
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
 <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>

That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism.
Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have
authority over anyone else.  dan

Just where do these 'true' libertarians live?  I don't know of a place
where no one has any authority over anyone else.  bill w

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 12:12 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
> Dan TheBookMan
> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:41 AM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
>
> On Mar 14, 2019, at 9:15 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com>
> wrote:
> > This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority
> but watch them closely.
>
> That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism.
> Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have
> authority over anyone else. (In the case of the police, abolition seems the
> appropriate libertarian response. Self-identified libertarians who scoff at
> this are almost certainly not libertarians but simply conservatives posing
> as libertarians.) And the best defense against the excesses and abuses of
> any authority is simply not to ever grant authority (over oneself and over
> others) in the first place. Failing that ? because most folks don?t want to
> take such a bold stance ? one shouldn?t be so naive as to believe that
> various authority-approved watchdog measures will somehow work well to curb
> arbitrary power.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>
>
>
>
> Dan, your comment demonstrates that the Libertarian party is no more
> unified, and probably less so, than the two American mainstream parties
> (which are both so dis-unified no one can really tell what they stand for
> (do you know? (neither do we.)))
>
> Within the Libertarian party are those who hold the view that no one
> should have authority and those who recognize that any no-authority society
> is at the mercy of the bad guys.  A pragmatic approach to the question
> results in the lower case l libertarian, often conflated with lower case c
> conservative, but distinct in my view.
>
> A pragmatic approach recognizes the firm necessity of authority, but also
> recognizes that power corrupts.  So... power must be very strictly
> controlled.
>
> We are now seeing a technologically-fueled vast and rapid expansion of
> surveillance.  We are getting to where home-mounted video is common enough
> that it is a highly effective tool against any crime which requires the bad
> guy to physically visit the home of the victim.  Enough citizens have
> cameras and have offered access to the constables that the bad guy can be
> tracked right to wherever he went.  The constables aren't publicizing it,
> but we see the results.  Package theft, so common just five years ago, has
> taken a nosedive in this area.  The UPS trucks and FedEx trucks seldom have
> signature-required deliveries anymore.  It is safe enough to leave the
> packages on the doorstep.  I now buy nearly everything from online
> retailers and have never had a package stolen.  If it ever happens, I will
> have good video evidence on the perp from two different angles.
>
> 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 danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 17:34:04 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:34:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
 <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <F3DB782A-6733-451C-A538-BF69274DB0C9@gmail.com>

On Mar 14, 2019, at 10:07 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
-----Original Message-----
> 
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan
> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:41 AM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
> 
>> On Mar 14, 2019, at 9:15 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>> This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority but watch them closely.
> 
> That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism. Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have authority over anyone else. (In the case of the police, abolition seems the appropriate libertarian response. Self-identified libertarians who scoff at this are almost certainly not libertarians but simply conservatives posing as libertarians.) And the best defense against the excesses and abuses of any authority is simply not to ever grant authority (over oneself and over others) in the first place. Failing that ? because most folks don?t want to take such a bold stance ? one shouldn?t be so naive as to believe that various authority-approved watchdog measures will somehow work well to curb arbitrary power.   
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Dan
> 
> Dan, your comment demonstrates that the Libertarian party is no more unified, and probably less so, than the two American mainstream parties (which are both so dis-unified no one can really tell what they stand for (do you know? (neither do we.)))  

I?m not a member of any political party, including the Libertarian Party. And what I posted isn?t about the LP.

> Within the Libertarian party are those who hold the view that no one should have authority and those who recognize that any no-authority society is at the mercy of the bad guys.

The belief that concentrating political power will somehow stop the ?bad guys? is fanciful as history demonstrates. The bad guys usually are the ones calling for concentrating power ? often using fear-mongering: if not for our power you?d be at the mercy of even worse bad guys ? or able to quickly game whatever centralized system is put in place. (The US Constitution is a case in point. It was a reactionary move to centralize power that worked in favor of the elites. The growth of federal power and militarism ever after are features not bugs. Antifederalists at that time discussed just this problem ? to no avail.)

>  A pragmatic approach to the question results in the lower case l libertarian, often conflated with lower case c conservative, but distinct in my view.
> A pragmatic approach recognizes the firm necessity of authority, but also recognizes that power corrupts.  So... power must be very strictly controlled.

The best way to strictly control power is to reduce it where it can?t be abolished outright. In the case of police, including the national police (the FBI), abolition seems the pragmatic course: they?re far too difficult to control, actually create more crime than they resolve, and seem a dangerous tool in the hands of bad policy. See:

https://c4ss.org/content/30727

> We are now seeing a technologically-fueled vast and rapid expansion of surveillance.  We are getting to where home-mounted video is common enough that it is a highly effective tool against any crime which requires the bad guy to physically visit the home of the victim.  Enough citizens have cameras and have offered access to the constables that the bad guy can be tracked right to wherever he went.  The constables aren't publicizing it, but we see the results.  Package theft, so common just five years ago, has taken a nosedive in this area.  The UPS trucks and FedEx trucks seldom have signature-required deliveries anymore.  It is safe enough to leave the packages on the doorstep.  I now buy nearly everything from online retailers and have never had a package stolen.  If it ever happens, I will have good video evidence on the perp from two different angles.

You notice that monitoring home package deliveries does NOT require a huge police state and could be done while abolishing probably 99% of the police if not a 100%. (The same applies to other crimes against property: thru simply don?t require the level of policing around today. That huge police force is there for other reasons. And, no, it ain?t to guard against hoards of barbarians waiting at the gates.;) It?s not a triumph of policing or of controlling authority. It?s a triumph of individuals finding ways to use technology (cheap networked camera tech) that happened despite massive government policing.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 17:40:40 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 12:40:40 -0500
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
 <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEay_Ja=DDxTbjH_zL3aVOsL1_gGAsmhBiRycTKrdNS9iA@mail.gmail.com>

p.s.  I am not a 'true' libertarian by Dan's definition, but that is more
of a philosophical position than a practical one.  In fact, as a practical
one, it would produce chaos, looting, murders and assaults and every other
crime you can think of.  Who or what is to stop these things from
happening? Get real, as we used to say long ago.

Who gets to define libertarianism?  Certainly not Dan - or me.
bill w

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 12:29 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism.
> Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have
> authority over anyone else.  dan
>
> Just where do these 'true' libertarians live?  I don't know of a place
> where no one has any authority over anyone else.  bill w
>
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 12:12 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
>> Dan TheBookMan
>> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:41 AM
>> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
>>
>> On Mar 14, 2019, at 9:15 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com>
>> wrote:
>> > This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority
>> but watch them closely.
>>
>> That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism.
>> Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have
>> authority over anyone else. (In the case of the police, abolition seems the
>> appropriate libertarian response. Self-identified libertarians who scoff at
>> this are almost certainly not libertarians but simply conservatives posing
>> as libertarians.) And the best defense against the excesses and abuses of
>> any authority is simply not to ever grant authority (over oneself and over
>> others) in the first place. Failing that ? because most folks don?t want to
>> take such a bold stance ? one shouldn?t be so naive as to believe that
>> various authority-approved watchdog measures will somehow work well to curb
>> arbitrary power.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Dan, your comment demonstrates that the Libertarian party is no more
>> unified, and probably less so, than the two American mainstream parties
>> (which are both so dis-unified no one can really tell what they stand for
>> (do you know? (neither do we.)))
>>
>> Within the Libertarian party are those who hold the view that no one
>> should have authority and those who recognize that any no-authority society
>> is at the mercy of the bad guys.  A pragmatic approach to the question
>> results in the lower case l libertarian, often conflated with lower case c
>> conservative, but distinct in my view.
>>
>> A pragmatic approach recognizes the firm necessity of authority, but also
>> recognizes that power corrupts.  So... power must be very strictly
>> controlled.
>>
>> We are now seeing a technologically-fueled vast and rapid expansion of
>> surveillance.  We are getting to where home-mounted video is common enough
>> that it is a highly effective tool against any crime which requires the bad
>> guy to physically visit the home of the victim.  Enough citizens have
>> cameras and have offered access to the constables that the bad guy can be
>> tracked right to wherever he went.  The constables aren't publicizing it,
>> but we see the results.  Package theft, so common just five years ago, has
>> taken a nosedive in this area.  The UPS trucks and FedEx trucks seldom have
>> signature-required deliveries anymore.  It is safe enough to leave the
>> packages on the doorstep.  I now buy nearly everything from online
>> retailers and have never had a package stolen.  If it ever happens, I will
>> have good video evidence on the perp from two different angles.
>>
>> 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 danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 17:43:30 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:43:30 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <5DF6DF0D-1CA5-465D-A140-D300ADD54632@gmail.com>

On Mar 14, 2019, at 10:29 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism. Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have authority over anyone else.  dan
> 
> Just where do these 'true' libertarians live?  I don't know of a place where no one has any authority over anyone else.  bill w

You?re confusing a view (libertarianism)?with whether it?s been totally put into practice (a fully libertarian community). If you want to make the argument that since no one lives that way, it?s impossible or at least wildly improbable, then that?s another discussion. (Of course, to me, it would be like you arguing in 1800 that there?s no society where men don?t rule women. Ergo, anyone calling for women to not be ruled by men is a whacky utopian.)   

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

>> On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 12:12 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan
>> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:41 AM
>> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
>> 
>> On Mar 14, 2019, at 9:15 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>> > This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority but watch them closely. 
>> 
>> That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism. Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have authority over anyone else. (In the case of the police, abolition seems the appropriate libertarian response. Self-identified libertarians who scoff at this are almost certainly not libertarians but simply conservatives posing as libertarians.) And the best defense against the excesses and abuses of any authority is simply not to ever grant authority (over oneself and over others) in the first place. Failing that ? because most folks don?t want to take such a bold stance ? one shouldn?t be so naive as to believe that various authority-approved watchdog measures will somehow work well to curb arbitrary power.   
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Dan
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Dan, your comment demonstrates that the Libertarian party is no more unified, and probably less so, than the two American mainstream parties (which are both so dis-unified no one can really tell what they stand for (do you know? (neither do we.)))  
>> 
>> Within the Libertarian party are those who hold the view that no one should have authority and those who recognize that any no-authority society is at the mercy of the bad guys.  A pragmatic approach to the question results in the lower case l libertarian, often conflated with lower case c conservative, but distinct in my view.
>> 
>> A pragmatic approach recognizes the firm necessity of authority, but also recognizes that power corrupts.  So... power must be very strictly controlled.
>> 
>> We are now seeing a technologically-fueled vast and rapid expansion of surveillance.  We are getting to where home-mounted video is common enough that it is a highly effective tool against any crime which requires the bad guy to physically visit the home of the victim.  Enough citizens have cameras and have offered access to the constables that the bad guy can be tracked right to wherever he went.  The constables aren't publicizing it, but we see the results.  Package theft, so common just five years ago, has taken a nosedive in this area.  The UPS trucks and FedEx trucks seldom have signature-required deliveries anymore.  It is safe enough to leave the packages on the doorstep.  I now buy nearly everything from online retailers and have never had a package stolen.  If it ever happens, I will have good video evidence on the perp from two different angles.
>> 
>> spike
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From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 17:47:03 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:47:03 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
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On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 9:19 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority but watch them closely.

Where do you get this from?  Your analogy makes no mention of
libertarianism until this line, but what I've read of libertarianism
suggests "support authority" is kind of the opposite of what they do.
(It can sometimes be hard to discern them from complete anarchists,
but libertarians at least acknowledge the existence of common goods
that you need some community agency to handle.  That said, they
support a lot less authority than there is today.)

From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 18:05:19 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 11:05:19 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <F3DB782A-6733-451C-A538-BF69274DB0C9@gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
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On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 10:46 AM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
> The best way to strictly control power is to reduce it where it can?t be abolished outright. In the case of police, including the national police (the FBI), abolition seems the pragmatic course: they?re far too difficult to control, actually create more crime than they resolve, and seem a dangerous tool in the hands of bad policy.

"Seem" is subjective, but the other two claims there are trivially disprovable.

If they were far too difficult to control, then why do they follow and
enforce laws they don't directly, openly create?  Congress is not the
FBI, and the two have been at odds much more than would be the case if
Congress did not control the FBI's budget (and through it, much of the
FBI).

As to creating more crime than they resolve, there are many reports -
most from the Department of Justice and other places related to the
FBI, but some not from anything under the FBI's arguable control -
showing how much crime the FBI resolves, and by all accounts it is a
substantial amount.  What tally is there of how much crime the FBI
causes?  It is a small enough number that there are few reports on
this.

> See:
>
> https://c4ss.org/content/30727

Its central claim is at the end:

> So what would we do with all the psychopaths and violent criminals? We wouldn?t give them a platform insulated from market competition that allows them to threaten, arrest, spy on, torture, aggress against, and control other people. Namely, we wouldn?t give them a police force.

The article basically claims that "all the psychopaths and violent
criminals" are, in fact, the police.  This is blatantly false on its
face.  It is a lie, probably out of delusion rather than intentional
malicious deception, but incorrect nonetheless.

It also calls for market-based police, ignoring the fact that violence
is not subject to market whims, but instead to the effectiveness of
violence.  If my thugs can beat up your thugs, it doesn't matter that
your thugs are cheaper and kinder.  Because you chose not to do
business with my thugs, my thugs murder your thugs and take everything
you have with impunity, until you either surrender to ("do business
with") my thugs or die.  (In a sense, this is kind of what happened
with most governments ever, but a specific parallel can be seen
between the American government and the pre-US Americans who chose not
to subscribe to the US's system of governance.)  This is why a
monopoly on violence is necessary: to curtail the number of thugs that
people must defend themselves against.  (And then the police need to
be reformed so citizens do not perceive a need to defend themselves
against the police.  Resources spent on defense, are generally
resources not spent on enriching people, and thus wasted resources
from certain points of view.)


From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 18:09:29 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 11:09:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEay_Ja=DDxTbjH_zL3aVOsL1_gGAsmhBiRycTKrdNS9iA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNThmTO68APMESHpskpc1=DY8i55njcV_zNPia4+bE2k9w@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 10:58 AM William Flynn Wallace
<foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Who gets to define libertarianism?  Certainly not Dan - or me.

Would you accept the Encyclopedia Britannica?

https://www.britannica.com/topic/libertarianism-politics

If I read this right, the definition appears to say that they believe
there should be a government, and in particular a means of protecting
liberties (that is, a police force), if constrained to the minimum
necessary.

From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 18:22:22 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 11:22:22 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEay_Ja=DDxTbjH_zL3aVOsL1_gGAsmhBiRycTKrdNS9iA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
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 <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <B37388C2-E939-40E1-85B8-1068C7A016E9@gmail.com>

On Mar 14, 2019, at 10:40 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> p.s.  I am not a 'true' libertarian by Dan's definition, but that is more of a philosophical position than a practical one.  In fact, as a practical one, it would produce chaos, looting, murders and assaults and every other crime you can think of.  Who or what is to stop these things from happening? Get real, as we used to say long ago.

You mean none of things happen now? You kind in a society where ?chaos, looting, murders and assaults and every other crime you can think of? are absent? Where exactly do you live? 

Now maybe you meant to say these things would be worse in a libertarian society, but that remains to be proved and doesn?t seem an open and shut case. Why? Because there are or have been societies with lower levels of centralized authority that have lower levels of crime and violence.

> Who gets to define libertarianism?  Certainly not Dan - or me.  
> bill w

Well, it?s more a matter of looking at how the term was used and originated, especially in the American context ? rather than me defining it by fiat. It?s really only in the last decade or so that ?libertarian? became so widely used that people who started identifying as libertarians suddenly started to be so loose that folks can pretend it?s Republican Lite or just Constitutionalist.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 18:22:29 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 11:22:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <5DF6DF0D-1CA5-465D-A140-D300ADD54632@gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNR6GkcinqofOGfsip7wWySQ2hZ4qhASg6h3gSLgVx4Xug@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 11:10 AM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
> You?re confusing a view (libertarianism)?with whether it?s been totally put into practice (a fully libertarian community). If you want to make the argument that since no one lives that way, it?s impossible or at least wildly improbable, then that?s another discussion. (Of course, to me, it would be like you arguing in 1800 that there?s no society where men don?t rule women. Ergo, anyone calling for women to not be ruled by men is a whacky utopian.)

How about that people have tried to live that way, and in every case
(where they lasted long enough to matter) they got conquered, because
the power necessary to fend off conquerors (and thus, force their
desires - that they not be conquered - upon those who wish to conquer
them) is the same power they refused to allow anyone in their society
to have?

By contrast, in 1800, there had been successful and relevant societies
in the past where men did not rule women, where the ending was not due
to that trait.  It was not inherently demonstrated as impossible, even
if there happened to be no known extant examples at that time.


From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 18:29:13 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 11:29:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEay_Ja=DDxTbjH_zL3aVOsL1_gGAsmhBiRycTKrdNS9iA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
 <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEay_Ja=DDxTbjH_zL3aVOsL1_gGAsmhBiRycTKrdNS9iA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00d701d4da93$d36953d0$7a3bfb70$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

 

>?p.s.  ? it would produce chaos, looting, murders and assaults and every other crime you can think of.  Who or what is to stop these things from happening? bill w

 

 

 

 

Mister Twelve Gage and his nephew Buckshot.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 18:36:10 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:36:10 -0500
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <5DF6DF0D-1CA5-465D-A140-D300ADD54632@gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
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 <5DF6DF0D-1CA5-465D-A140-D300ADD54632@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZ3cDhCZBx_LcbTV=s0-O+OshT_Cpzob4B29cDL58Qwhw@mail.gmail.com>

You?re confusing a view (libertarianism)?with whether it?s been totally put
into practice (a fully libertarian community). If you want to make the
argument that since no one lives that way, it?s impossible or at least
wildly improbable, then that?s another discussion.  dan

How can you separate the theory of something from the practice?  The theory
should say just what the practice is.  If you want no authority, then you
have to say now you are going to keep society from going to hell.  How, for
instance, are you going to keep the oceans from consisting mostly of
pirates?  How can you as captain of a ship order someone to fire on the
pirates?  According to your theory, the ensign can just say "I just don't
feel like taking orders today, or ever, for that matter".  bill w

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 1:11 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 14, 2019, at 10:29 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism.
> Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have
> authority over anyone else.  dan
>
> Just where do these 'true' libertarians live?  I don't know of a place
> where no one has any authority over anyone else.  bill w
>
>
> You?re confusing a view (libertarianism)?with whether it?s been totally
> put into practice (a fully libertarian community). If you want to make the
> argument that since no one lives that way, it?s impossible or at least
> wildly improbable, then that?s another discussion. (Of course, to me, it
> would be like you arguing in 1800 that there?s no society where men don?t
> rule women. Ergo, anyone calling for women to not be ruled by men is a
> whacky utopian.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my Kindle books at:
>
> http://author.to/DanUst
>
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 12:12 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
>> Dan TheBookMan
>> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:41 AM
>> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
>>
>> On Mar 14, 2019, at 9:15 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com>
>> wrote:
>> > This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority
>> but watch them closely.
>>
>> That view of libertarianism is diametrically opposed to libertarianism.
>> Libertarianism, in terms of authority, is the view that no one should have
>> authority over anyone else. (In the case of the police, abolition seems the
>> appropriate libertarian response. Self-identified libertarians who scoff at
>> this are almost certainly not libertarians but simply conservatives posing
>> as libertarians.) And the best defense against the excesses and abuses of
>> any authority is simply not to ever grant authority (over oneself and over
>> others) in the first place. Failing that ? because most folks don?t want to
>> take such a bold stance ? one shouldn?t be so naive as to believe that
>> various authority-approved watchdog measures will somehow work well to curb
>> arbitrary power.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Dan, your comment demonstrates that the Libertarian party is no more
>> unified, and probably less so, than the two American mainstream parties
>> (which are both so dis-unified no one can really tell what they stand for
>> (do you know? (neither do we.)))
>>
>> Within the Libertarian party are those who hold the view that no one
>> should have authority and those who recognize that any no-authority society
>> is at the mercy of the bad guys.  A pragmatic approach to the question
>> results in the lower case l libertarian, often conflated with lower case c
>> conservative, but distinct in my view.
>>
>> A pragmatic approach recognizes the firm necessity of authority, but also
>> recognizes that power corrupts.  So... power must be very strictly
>> controlled.
>>
>> We are now seeing a technologically-fueled vast and rapid expansion of
>> surveillance.  We are getting to where home-mounted video is common enough
>> that it is a highly effective tool against any crime which requires the bad
>> guy to physically visit the home of the victim.  Enough citizens have
>> cameras and have offered access to the constables that the bad guy can be
>> tracked right to wherever he went.  The constables aren't publicizing it,
>> but we see the results.  Package theft, so common just five years ago, has
>> taken a nosedive in this area.  The UPS trucks and FedEx trucks seldom have
>> signature-required deliveries anymore.  It is safe enough to leave the
>> packages on the doorstep.  I now buy nearly everything from online
>> retailers and have never had a package stolen.  If it ever happens, I will
>> have good video evidence on the perp from two different angles.
>>
>> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 19:21:18 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 12:21:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <B37388C2-E939-40E1-85B8-1068C7A016E9@gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
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 <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEay_Ja=DDxTbjH_zL3aVOsL1_gGAsmhBiRycTKrdNS9iA@mail.gmail.com>
 <B37388C2-E939-40E1-85B8-1068C7A016E9@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <014501d4da9b$1a1a6330$4e4f2990$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan



>? only in the last decade or so that ?libertarian? became so widely used that people who started identifying as libertarians suddenly started to be so loose that folks can pretend it?s Republican Lite or just Constitutionalist.  Regards, Dan

 

 

Dan it doesn?t look to me like either of the US mainstream parties so much as tossed a bone to libertarianism, or rather my view of what libertarianism is today.

 

The US must at some point talk about the elephant in the room: the fed is bankrupt.  It isn?t so much it will be in the future; it is now.  It has no idea how to balance its own budget.  The US has grown dependent on its own adversary to loan it money just to make regular expenses in peacetime, we are left to wonder happens when the Chinese government says one day: no more lending to the US.  Too risky.

 

My (admittedly idealized) view of libertarianism would demand balancing the federal budget forthwith.

 

spike

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 19:30:09 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 12:30:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQPMwOU30h7efWPvrA8PJHNLHzfQJaEHBft-5bTPj4wdg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNQPMwOU30h7efWPvrA8PJHNLHzfQJaEHBft-5bTPj4wdg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <015401d4da9c$56deeab0$049cc010$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 9:19 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>> ...This is, in my view, the message of libertarianism: support authority
but watch them closely.

>...Where do you get this from?  Your analogy makes no mention of
libertarianism until this line, but what I've read of libertarianism
suggests "support authority" is kind of the opposite of what they do.
(It can sometimes be hard to discern them from complete anarchists, but
libertarians at least acknowledge the existence of common goods that you
need some community agency to handle.  That said, they support a lot less
authority than there is today.)
_______________________________________________



Ja this is my idealized view of libertarianism, but I claim that we all hold
an idealized view or a personalized view of our favorite party or
philosophy.  In my view, if the US federal government did exactly what it
says in the constitution as written, then the states would do the heavy
lifting and competition with each other would keep them sane.  

Reasoning: states can offer as much as they want, but if they do, they must
somehow find the money to do that.  The state of New York is a poster-child
example: one of their representatives chased away billions of tax revenue
from Amazon.  Now we will get to see how they want to deal with it.

spike


From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 20:12:43 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:12:43 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <00d701d4da93$d36953d0$7a3bfb70$@rainier66.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
 <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEay_Ja=DDxTbjH_zL3aVOsL1_gGAsmhBiRycTKrdNS9iA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNQxFSkrZo-PReBv3biWfKhpcoAr-79ZcZpJC-+x0O6wng@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 12:29 PM <spike at rainier66.com wrote:

> >?p.s.  ? it would produce chaos, looting, murders and assaults and every
> other crime you can think of.  Who or what is to stop these things from
> happening? bill w
>
> Mister Twelve Gage and his nephew Buckshot.
>
That would be one of the sources of said chaos, looting, murders, and
assaults.

>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 20:53:42 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:53:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQxFSkrZo-PReBv3biWfKhpcoAr-79ZcZpJC-+x0O6wng@mail.gmail.com>
References: <004601d4d8ec$e1709400$a451bc00$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armit3gJY3tG1ZdzXNNxkzhY9zOs6a=oKHazn=UiY4p_4iw@mail.gmail.com>
 <006f01d4da81$335c9990$9a15ccb0$@rainier66.com>
 <EB74BE3E-E364-42DA-A703-EED143FC0A4C@gmail.com>
 <009101d4da88$6a674ff0$3f35efd0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEbA2i=cb_x7Fm8J+-vJRkeO7f-oBcjyH223cyKztQ0QXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEay_Ja=DDxTbjH_zL3aVOsL1_gGAsmhBiRycTKrdNS9iA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00d701d4da93$d36953d0$7a3bfb70$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNQxFSkrZo-PReBv3biWfKhpcoAr-79ZcZpJC-+x0O6wng@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01d201d4daa8$0274ffd0$075eff70$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

 

On Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 12:29 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com>  wrote:

>?p.s.  ? it would produce chaos, looting, murders and assaults and every other crime you can think of.  Who or what is to stop these things from happening? bill w

Mister Twelve Gage and his nephew Buckshot.

That would be one of the sources of said chaos, looting, murders, and assaults.

 

 

Ja.  It is the reason my version of libertarianism has authority.  That authority must be carefully and specifically defined, then held strictly within its boundaries, for power corrupts.  The US Constitution doesn?t grant all that much authority to the Fed.  The states do most of the heavy lifting, and they need to compete with each other.  Competition breeds excellence.

 

spike

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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 21:37:59 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 14:37:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] elite college bribery scandal
Message-ID: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>

 

Perhaps you have heard of the latest conniption: rich people buying their offspring into elite colleges.

 

Here?s my question: 

 

(BillW, your opinion weighs a lot on this.)

 

What is the biggest differences between a highly selective state university (such as the UC system) and the elite universities?  Rather, why should one pay more to go to the elite schools?

 

spike

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 22:08:47 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 15:08:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] elite college bribery scandal
In-Reply-To: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>
References: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <A9A94CF8-76D8-48A5-95D3-BA32B14567DA@gmail.com>

On Mar 14, 2019, at 2:37 PM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote: 
> Perhaps you have heard of the latest conniption: rich people buying their offspring into elite colleges.
>  
> Here?s my question:
>  
> (BillW, your opinion weighs a lot on this.)
>  
> What is the biggest differences between a highly selective state university (such as the UC system) and the elite universities?  Rather, why should one pay more to go to the elite schools?

Bryan Caplan weighed in on this:

http://time.com/5551315/college-bribery-larger-lie/

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 22:12:51 2019
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 15:12:51 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB6FT0tRoD10W7LoxvaL5XWaDN-RbjzOypH6TbV5zo8WZQ@mail.gmail.com>

Spike wrote:

"In the old days, there were early agricultural civilizations forming,
and civilizations recognizing the advantages of working together in
big groups beyond one's family, central governments and so forth.  As
in nature, where there are plants, plant eaters evolve, and carnivores
evolve.  A civilization equivalent to that would be the agricultural
society would be loosely analogous to the vegetarian or grazing
beasts.  Then raiding societies evolve, which do not farm land, but go
invade existing farm land, kill the inhabitants if they fail to flee,
devour their crops, then move on, in a way roughly analogous to the
pack of hyenas or pride of lions."

I keep up with the work in this area and have never heard of this
model.  If you have a pointer to an article or two on the subject I
would be most interested.

What did settled agriculture do?  For a start, it raised the number of
people who could live on a given area of land by a factor of around
100.  It also about doubled the number of children a woman could
produce compared to hunter-gatherers.  There were other effects such
as the diseases that could spread in larger groups, but the overall
effect was much larger populations.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04375-6

This is the explanation of something that came out of genetic studies
and was a major mystery for a few years.

Keith

From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 23:31:10 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 19:31:10 -0400
Subject: [ExI] elite college bribery scandal
In-Reply-To: <A9A94CF8-76D8-48A5-95D3-BA32B14567DA@gmail.com>
References: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>
 <A9A94CF8-76D8-48A5-95D3-BA32B14567DA@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3oKv1DGdfJtj=MA_XuQYYxe4MZQAPmp3bf20AjFXEe4A@mail.gmail.com>

I heard one applicant claimed to have played marco polo, or maybe it was
water polo, in high school because it would help him get into an elite
college when in fact he did not play that game and used his time doing
other things. What I don't understand is the relevance between playing a
kid's game in a pool and the ability to do well at a world class institute
of higher learning. To my mind accepting a real water polo player who was
poor in academics but rejecting another with better test scores because he
didn't  play marco polo is also scandalous and is far more common.

And it makes no economic sense, at least accepting the top football player
and letting him in for free will make a ton of money for his college and
the for the TV networks that broadcast the games, so it doesn't  matter how
dumb he is and it doesn't even matter if he graduates, but there is no big
money in water polo. Of course the football player really didn't get in for
free, he paid for his "education" (in Sandbox 101 and similar courses) with
bits of his brain.

 John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 14 23:33:33 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 18:33:33 -0500
Subject: [ExI] elite college bribery scandal
In-Reply-To: <A9A94CF8-76D8-48A5-95D3-BA32B14567DA@gmail.com>
References: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>
 <A9A94CF8-76D8-48A5-95D3-BA32B14567DA@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaiCcNkTG_fKos0PdpmsXTO+iqi5i8g3M5CDF+L1OdFyA@mail.gmail.com>

Long before this latest craze, Harvard etc. was the place to go to meet
people.  It doesn't matter what your grades are.  You will meet the elite
who will run politics, business, and who knows what else.  Joining the
elite clubs gives you ins for life if you are accepted.

Even at lower levels, where you got your MBA or doctorate is a bragging
right thing.  You won't be asked what you did your dissertation on - you
will be asked what university you went to.

The only way to beat this system for the individual is to be a genius.
Nobody cared where Einstein got educated.  bill w



On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 5:13 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 14, 2019, at 2:37 PM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com>
> wrote:
>
> Perhaps you have heard of the latest conniption: rich people buying their
> offspring into elite colleges.
>
>
>
> Here?s my question:
>
>
>
> (BillW, your opinion weighs a lot on this.)
>
>
>
> What is the biggest differences between a highly selective state
> university (such as the UC system) and the elite universities?  Rather, why
> should one pay more to go to the elite schools?
>
>
> Bryan Caplan weighed in on this:
>
> http://time.com/5551315/college-bribery-larger-lie/
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my Kindle books at:
>
> http://author.to/DanUst
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 14 23:54:21 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 16:54:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB6FT0tRoD10W7LoxvaL5XWaDN-RbjzOypH6TbV5zo8WZQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB6FT0tRoD10W7LoxvaL5XWaDN-RbjzOypH6TbV5zo8WZQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <024701d4dac1$3f350690$bd9f13b0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Keith Henson
Subject: Re: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

Spike wrote:

>>..."In the old days, there were early agricultural civilizations forming,
and civilizations recognizing the advantages of working together in big
groups beyond one's family, central governments and so forth.  As in nature,
where there are plants, plant eaters evolve, and carnivores evolve.  A
civilization equivalent to that would be the agricultural society would be
loosely analogous to the vegetarian or grazing beasts.  Then raiding
societies evolve, which do not farm land, but go invade existing farm land,
kill the inhabitants if they fail to flee, devour their crops, then move on,
in a way roughly analogous to the pack of hyenas or pride of lions."

>...I keep up with the work in this area and have never heard of this model.
If you have a pointer to an article or two on the subject I would be most
interested... Keith
_______________________________________________

Keith don't take it more seriously than it deserves.  I invented the notion,
my main source being breezy leisure speculation from a tragically idle
imagination.

The reason I find this whole line of speculation interesting is in relation
to a particular technological advance: writing.  Consider that some of our
oldest written historical records come from the point of view of one of
those predator packs.  Read on please.

Imagine the scenario where there are early agricultural societies forming,
which creates an attractive target for predatory groups.  These groups are
making their living by going around knocking off agricultural
establishments.  Practicing their warrior skills, they hone their weapons
and get good at using them.  OK cool.

Now they happen upon the land of Canaan, send in spies, like what they see,
arrange for their prophets to see visions and have God instruct them to go
in there and take that place as their homeland.  That's how the trouble
started, and it is still with us to this day.

The whole story is found in Numbers chapter 13.

Long story short: they invade, they win, they settle, they write about what
happened.  We know that writing is a critically important technology, for it
establishes continuity in any culture.  It also introduces new troubles:
once written, writing doesn't change, even if culture does.

Be that as it may, this predator pack created some of our oldest surviving
historical records.  So some of the earliest history we have in the west was
written from the point of view of the predator/invader.  We don't have
surviving records from the people who were there already when the invaders
arrived with instructions from their god to take their land and the weapons
to make it happen.

People making their living invading existing agricultural establishments
will generally not develop art.  That would be too hard to transport while
wandering about in the wilderness for 40 years.  They won't develop
architecture since they will be moving on soon.  They will develop weapons
and writing.  They develop writing because books are relatively easy to
transport, and weapons because they need them to slay the infidel.

Consequence: some of our earliest written history is from the point of view
of the invader.

Consequence: modern descendants of that warrior culture are to this day
known for remarkable accomplishments in letters and weapons technology.

This is the world according to spike.

spike























From danust2012 at gmail.com  Fri Mar 15 15:07:20 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2019 08:07:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what the hell was i thinking?
In-Reply-To: <024701d4dac1$3f350690$bd9f13b0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAPiwVB6FT0tRoD10W7LoxvaL5XWaDN-RbjzOypH6TbV5zo8WZQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <024701d4dac1$3f350690$bd9f13b0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <DF23EA74-A163-4507-B6B9-84F9868AEB0D@gmail.com>

On Mar 14, 2019, at 4:54 PM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> Keith don't take it more seriously than it deserves.  I invented the notion,
> my main source being breezy leisure speculation from a tragically idle
> imagination.
> 
> The reason I find this whole line of speculation interesting is in relation
> to a particular technological advance: writing.  Consider that some of our
> oldest written historical records come from the point of view of one of
> those predator packs.  Read on please.

What you?re talking about ? the Book of Numbers and the story of the invasion of Canaan in particular ? is not among the ?oldest written historical records.? That distinction would go to the Egyptians and Mesopotamians and predate the writing of Numbers by about two thousand years. Then there?s the issue of whether Numbers is reliable history.   

> Imagine the scenario where there are early agricultural societies forming,
> which creates an attractive target for predatory groups.  These groups are
> making their living by going around knocking off agricultural
> establishments.  Practicing their warrior skills, they hone their weapons
> and get good at using them.  OK cool.
> 
> Now they happen upon the land of Canaan, send in spies, like what they see,
> arrange for their prophets to see visions and have God instruct them to go
> in there and take that place as their homeland.  That's how the trouble
> started, and it is still with us to this day.
> 
> The whole story is found in Numbers chapter 13.
> 
> Long story short: they invade, they win, they settle, they write about what
> happened.  We know that writing is a critically important technology, for it
> establishes continuity in any culture.  It also introduces new troubles:
> once written, writing doesn't change, even if culture does.

Actually, it does change. Redactions and mistakes occur and then there are outright losses (in other words, a text is lost as in doesn?t get preserved or copied and then might be forgotten). Plus the oral culture still continues and still has an influence on writing. 

> Be that as it may, this predator pack created some of our oldest surviving
> historical records.  So some of the earliest history we have in the west was
> written from the point of view of the predator/invader.  We don't have
> surviving records from the people who were there already when the invaders
> arrived with instructions from their god to take their land and the weapons
> to make it happen.

Again, it?s not the earliest writing, not the earliest history. And it?s not part of what?s considered the West. Ancient Israel and Canaan were part of the East. And the Hebrew literature is quite young by comparison with other writings ? not the oldest and not even the oldest in the region. (Heck, that the Hebrew writing system is derived from the earlier Phoenician one should also give a strong hint that the ancient Hebrews weren?t doing the writing thing first even in their region!)

(In the West, to my knowledge, the oldest written records are in the as yet undeciphered Linear A in Crete ? if calling this the West is acceptable. Later Mycenaean Linear B texts still predate Numbers by probably a thousand years. But these are definitely in the West and in an Indo-European language ? Mycenaean Greek.)

> People making their living invading existing agricultural establishments
> will generally not develop art.  That would be too hard to transport while
> wandering about in the wilderness for 40 years.  They won't develop
> architecture since they will be moving on soon.  They will develop weapons
> and writing.  They develop writing because books are relatively easy to
> transport, and weapons because they need them to slay the infidel.
> 
> Consequence: some of our earliest written history is from the point of view
> of the invader.
> 
> Consequence: modern descendants of that warrior culture are to this day
> known for remarkable accomplishments in letters and weapons technology.
> 
> This is the world according to spike.

Actually, modern archaeology seems to call into question the whole invasion narrative. The ancient Israelites seem to be actually a branch of the Canaanites rather than outside invaders. The later biblical writings seem to be along the lines of Virgil: a national origins myth that?s not a reliable guide to history. This shouldn?t be too surprising since the book in question was redacted in the post-Exilic period ? sometime after 515 CE. Just like Virgil is a bad guide to the history of Troy, Carthage, and Rome, the Hebrew Bible isn?t much of a historical guide to the ancient Levant.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

From avant at sollegro.com  Sat Mar 16 01:33:21 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2019 18:33:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Human health catastrophe, was Re: Book on Parasites
Message-ID: <20190315183321.Horde.kCprZVKOMhFkNO39MW1UeI4@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Jeff Davis:


> A bit of good news to brighten your day.
>
> In referencing the microbial community, rather than the disparaging term
> 'parasites', perhaps 'inventory' or 'resource' might be more apt.

The technical term is microbiome, or simply microflora.

> In1942, the 'miracle' drug penicillin launched the antibiotic era.  In the
> ensuing ninety years, the development of new antibiotics, their
> ever-increasing use promoted by the tragically misguided notion that
> "bacteria are bad, and antibiotics are good", has ***POISONED*** the human
> microbiome worldwide.  Combined with the sterilization of the human living
> environment, this has resulted in a worldwide human health catastrophe.

Antibiotics poisoned some microorganisms and gave others a huge growth  
advantage. Keep in mind that almost all known antibiotics are  
synthesized by some microorganisms to kill other competing  
microorganisms and those organisms have also evolved counter-measures.  
Our medicine simply borrowed these molecules from their original  
inventors.

> The lower bowel is an immune system organ, containing 90% (I've read this,
> but can't vouch for the numbers) of the cells of the human immune system.

There are a lot of white blood cells in the intestines (and over 100  
million neurons too meaning the gut processes information so maybe  
there is something to "gut feelings") but not 90% of the immune  
system. That beings said there is a large concentration of immune  
cells in the gut but I would say more like to 30%-50% than 90%. You  
might be thinking of the also controversial statistic that 90% of the  
cells in the human body are not human but microbial. Insofar as one  
can culture bacteria, we are all as rugged libertarian individuals  
also simultaneously a multicultural empire of cells as it were. Fancy  
that if you would.

> The human body is an ecosystem. The microbiome is a vital part of that
> system that has co-evolved with its host organism, over the 650 million
> years since the Cambrian explosion, so as to maintain the host in an
> ****optimal**** state of health.

The human body is an ecosystem and an economy. The human body is  
delicate political balance between genetic rules, chemical  
communication, and selfish interest on the part of cells and the genes  
within those cells. It is also a vast system of chemical synthesis,  
communications, and transportation networks between those cells both  
human and microbial.


> I would suggest that the plague of ***ALL*** the 'mysterious' auto-immune
> diseases with 'unknown' causes -- asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, MS,
> obesity/type2 diabetes -- along with those gastrointestinal disorders --
> Crohn's disease, IBS, ulcerative colitis, and C. diff infections(proven) --
> are the result of the destruction of the human microbiome by the widespread
> use of antibiotics.  And this has been worsened by the sterilization of the
> human living space -- particularly urban -- which clears out the natural
> microbial population, preventing both the initial colonization of the young
> and limiting opportunity for subsequent recolonization following antibiotic
> destruction.

No. For example, asthma is first described in ancient Greek texts, by  
the same name no less and, x-rays have found evidence of rheumatoid  
arthritis in Egyptian mummies. Both  of which predate human use of  
antibiotics. Multiple Sclerosis is probably more about vitamin D  
deficiency than about the microbiome but the microbiome is fashionable  
to study so I would not be surprised if some small correlation could  
be found in the literature. Furthermore Clostridium diffiCiles (C  
diff) is an antibiotic-resistant bacteria not an autoimmune disease.

On the other hand, a link between microbiome and the intestinal  
diseases you mention is very likely and obesity does correlate with  
intestinal microflora in mice. So  IBS and other intestinal disorders  
could in fact be partly dependent on the intestinal flora. Peptic  
Ulcers certainly are with regards to Helicobacter pylori so ulcerative  
colitis may very well be as well.

Things, especially in biology, are usually more complicated than a  
single cause or a single cure. You are a collection of hundreds of  
trillions of beings all playing prisoner's dilemma with one another.  
When your bacterial cells defect on you, you get a boil or a tummy  
ache. When your actual human cells defect on you, you get cancer.

> The bad news is that nearly the entire human world population, excepting
> primitive peoples too remote for access to modern medicine, have had, or
> are on course to having, their health massively damaged.  The good news is
> that both the prevention and quite possibly the cure for this human health
> catastrophe, is cheap, easy, and immediately at hand. It is not beyond
> hoping that humanity could be poised on the brink of an unprecedented
> lifting of the burden of all manner of quality-of-life-destroying disease.

Beware of hucksters selling panaceas.

>
> If you poll the list of references in the paper linked below, you will find
> that the preponderance of research on the microbiome has taken place in
> only the last dozen or so years.  This is, astonishingly, only just
> recently a "Eureka! moment" for human health science.
>
> I am hopeful of the very real possibility of huge near term improvements in
> human health/quality of life, accompanied by improved prosperity from
> substantial reductions in health care costs: health care costs for healthy
> people are way less than for sick people.  (Well, duh!)
>
> An ecological and evolutionary perspective on human?microbe mutualism and
> disease
>
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5902740_Dethlefsen_L_McFall-Ngai_M_Relman_DA_An_ecological_and_evolutionary_perspective_on_human-microbe_mutualism_and_disease_Nature_449_811-818

Yes, it is great that we are finally waking up to how interconnected  
we are with our microflora.

> There is a great deal more to this story, and here is where it almost goes
> into ye olde conspiracy theory.  In 2013, the FDA issued a decision
> prohibiting any licensed health care professional from administering either
> the cure or the preventive protocol.  Do you believe it?!  It seems like
> the FDA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the big pharma and the health
> insurance business, and they want to protect their revenue stream ***BY
> KEEPING EVERYONE SICK!!***.  I don't think it's intentional, but rather a
> confirmation of Upton Sinclair's observation:
>
> "*It is difficult to get a man to understand
> <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Understand> something, when his salary
> depends upon his not understanding it!*"

Nice quote.

Stuart LaForge



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Mar 16 17:07:03 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2019 13:07:03 -0400
Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=8BAt_least_Trump_=E2=80=8Bhas_given_is_fa?=
	=?utf-8?q?ir_warning_about_2020?=
Message-ID: <CAJPayv262odfsBAxpSjiuGb_AAWNhH5f17JVF3Pk05Uw6hUgqA@mail.gmail.com>

This is what Trump said on Thursday:

"*I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the
military, the support of the Bikers for Trump ? I have the tough people,
but they don?t play it tough ? until they go to a certain point, and then
it would be very bad, very bad*"

John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sun Mar 17 23:02:23 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2019 16:02:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] roboert bradbury's writings
Message-ID: <007501d4dd15$7be71320$73b53960$@rainier66.com>

Does anyone here know the protocol about one's writings after one has passed
on?  Robert had some papers published online, but I don't know what became
of his archives.  His old domain was aevios.com but if you look for that
now, it comes up as a 404.

In general, how are papers online treated if the author passes unexpectedly?

spike


From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Mar 18 00:33:58 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:33:58 +0000
Subject: [ExI] roboert bradbury's writings
In-Reply-To: <007501d4dd15$7be71320$73b53960$@rainier66.com>
References: <007501d4dd15$7be71320$73b53960$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiNDuz1kdae2psduDdzD1w9w7ghXFgdxvqxRBHXyJ3vJQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, 17 Mar 2019 at 23:09, <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> Does anyone here know the protocol about one's writings after one has passed
> on?  Robert had some papers published online, but I don't know what became
> of his archives.  His old domain was aevios.com but if you look for that
> now, it comes up as a 404.
>
> In general, how are papers online treated if the author passes unexpectedly?
>

Typo - His domain was www.aeiveos.com  - now closed.
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine still has many document copies
from old site snapshots, but some links no longer work.
If you go to the Wayback Machine - https://archive.org/web/web.php -
and search for - http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/ - you get a list of
all the site snapshots.

It will be a lengthy task to go through all the links and copy off the
documents that are still available.
I would assume that these are considered to be in the public domain.


BillK

From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Mar 18 17:41:17 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 10:41:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] roboert bradbury's writings
In-Reply-To: <007501d4dd15$7be71320$73b53960$@rainier66.com>
References: <007501d4dd15$7be71320$73b53960$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRghQi7K-GxpB-WH2rDM6hB1CeLWv12vqnYjCBy92LCyw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 4:06 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> Does anyone here know the protocol about one's writings after one has passed
> on?  Robert had some papers published online, but I don't know what became
> of his archives.  His old domain was aevios.com but if you look for that
> now, it comes up as a 404.
>
> In general, how are papers online treated if the author passes unexpectedly?

>From a legal point of view,
https://www.teachingcopyright.org/handout/public-domain-faq.html says,
"In general, works published after 1977 will not fall into the public
domain until 70 years after the death of author, or, for corporate
works, anonymous works, or works for hire, 95 years from the date of
publication or 120 years from the date of creation, whichever expires
first."

But that's assuming there's anyone who cares - heirs, usually, and
almost always only because they think they might get some money out of
them; they almost never care about the work itself ("moral rights",
wishing to complete an unfinished story, or whatever).  For works
where nobody's expecting to profit (which is likely the case here),
treat them as if they were public domain already.

From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar 18 18:57:30 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 11:57:30 -0700
Subject: [ExI] roboert bradbury's writings
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRghQi7K-GxpB-WH2rDM6hB1CeLWv12vqnYjCBy92LCyw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <007501d4dd15$7be71320$73b53960$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNRghQi7K-GxpB-WH2rDM6hB1CeLWv12vqnYjCBy92LCyw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00a301d4ddbc$70d69c10$5283d430$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Adrian Tymes
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2019 10:41 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] roboert bradbury's writings

On Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 4:06 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> Does anyone here know the protocol about one's writings after one has 
> passed on?  Robert had some papers published online, but I don't know 
> what became of his archives.  His old domain was aevios.com but if you 
> look for that now, it comes up as a 404.
>
> In general, how are papers online treated if the author passes
unexpectedly?

>From a legal point of view,
https://www.teachingcopyright.org/handout/public-domain-faq.html says, "In
general, works published after 1977 will not fall into the public domain
until 70 years after the death of author, or, for corporate works, anonymous
works, or works for hire, 95 years from the date of publication or 120 years
from the date of creation, whichever expires first."

But that's assuming there's anyone who cares - heirs, usually, and almost
always only because they think they might get some money out of them; they
almost never care about the work itself ("moral rights", wishing to complete
an unfinished story, or whatever).  For works where nobody's expecting to
profit (which is likely the case here), treat them as if they were public
domain already.
_______________________________________________



Thanks Adrian, that's about how I pictured it.  Robert had no heirs, never
married, never had any children and his writings have zero commercial value
from what I can tell (otherwise I would be trying to earn a buttload on them
(hey, it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it.))

His musings on Matrioshka Brains are what I (and Damien Broderick) hope to
immortalize.  I didn't agree on all of it, particularly the thermodynamic
stuff, but Robert was a brilliant man.  If I may presume to speak for the
departed, that fine man would be delighted that someone was trying to pick
up the ball and carry it forward.

spike


From avant at sollegro.com  Tue Mar 19 00:10:37 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 17:10:37 -0700
Subject: [ExI] elite college bribery scandal
In-Reply-To: <752587898.7054600.1552948334162@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>
 <A9A94CF8-76D8-48A5-95D3-BA32B14567DA@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaiCcNkTG_fKos0PdpmsXTO+iqi5i8g3M5CDF+L1OdFyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <752587898.7054600.1552948334162@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190318171037.Horde.zynbpfc9Qzwa3fwbg38nFk1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Bill Wallace:

> Long before this latest craze, Harvard etc. was the place to go to  
> meet people.? It doesn't matter what your grades are.? You will meet  
> the elite who will run politics, business, and who knows what else.?  
> Joining the elite clubs gives you ins for life if you are accepted.??
> Even at lower levels, where you got your MBA or doctorate is a  
> bragging right thing.? You won't be asked what you did your  
> dissertation on - you will be asked what university you went to.??
> The only way to beat this system for the individual is to be a  
> genius. Nobody cared where Einstein got educated.

This is pretty much the way things are. My question is thus: is this  
way things ought to be? The reason I ask is that America seems to be a  
plutocratic republic with delusions of being an egalitarian  
meritocracy. I am not entirely against the idea of a plutocracy, but  
if so, then why the pretense toward meritocracy? Is it so that elites  
privileged from birth can pat themselves on the back for walking to  
the finish line of a very unfair race? Is it to keep the proles  
thinking that they are one promotion or innovation away from the big  
leagues? Is it a deliberate scam to sell student loans? Or some  
pathological form of self-deception?

And going off of Caplan's premises, if we have it within our  
technological reach to make educational dimplomas and degrees honest  
signals of academic achievement rather than signals of wealth and  
privilege, should we implement that technology? Would it make a  
difference?


Stuart LaForge

>
>
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 5:13 PM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mar 14, 2019, at 2:37 PM, <spike at rainier66.com>  
> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:?
>
> Perhaps you have heard of the latest conniption: rich people buying  
> their offspring into elite colleges.
>
> ?
>
> Here?s my question:
>
> ?
>
> (BillW, your opinion weighs a lot on this.)
>
> ?
>
> What is the biggest differences between a highly selective state  
> university (such as the UC system) and the elite universities??  
> Rather, why should one pay more to go to the elite schools?
>
>
> Bryan Caplan weighed in on this:
> http://time.com/5551315/college-bribery-larger-lie/
>
> Regards,
> Dan? ?Sample my Kindle books at:
> http://author.to/DanUst
> _______________________________________________
> 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



From danust2012 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 19 00:37:15 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 17:37:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] elite college bribery scandal
In-Reply-To: <20190318171037.Horde.zynbpfc9Qzwa3fwbg38nFk1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>
 <A9A94CF8-76D8-48A5-95D3-BA32B14567DA@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaiCcNkTG_fKos0PdpmsXTO+iqi5i8g3M5CDF+L1OdFyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <752587898.7054600.1552948334162@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190318171037.Horde.zynbpfc9Qzwa3fwbg38nFk1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <999BD99E-59EC-486B-B6B2-FC6B14D8BE6B@gmail.com>

On Mar 18, 2019, at 5:10 PM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Quoting Bill Wallace:
> 
>> Long before this latest craze, Harvard etc. was the place to go to meet people.  It doesn't matter what your grades are.  You will meet the elite who will run politics, business, and who knows what else.  Joining the elite clubs gives you ins for life if you are accepted.  
>> Even at lower levels, where you got your MBA or doctorate is a bragging right thing.  You won't be asked what you did your dissertation on - you will be asked what university you went to.  
>> The only way to beat this system for the individual is to be a genius. Nobody cared where Einstein got educated.
> 
> This is pretty much the way things are. My question is thus: is this way things ought to be? The reason I ask is that America seems to be a plutocratic republic with delusions of being an egalitarian meritocracy. I am not entirely against the idea of a plutocracy, but if so, then why the pretense toward meritocracy? Is it so that elites privileged from birth can pat themselves on the back for walking to the finish line of a very unfair race? Is it to keep the proles thinking that they are one promotion or innovation away from the big leagues? Is it a deliberate scam to sell student loans? Or some pathological form of self-deception?
> 
> And going off of Caplan's premises, if we have it within our technological reach to make educational dimplomas and degrees honest signals of academic achievement rather than signals of wealth and privilege, should we implement that technology? Would it make a difference?
> 
> Stuart LaForge

I believe Caplan is saying the degree from a top school doesn?t signal wealth and privilege. (Why would it? It?s obvious that some people can buy their way into a top school, but showing off one?s portfolio would easily display wealth and one can display privilege by having a Park Avenue address. Instead, his claim is that it signals you?ll be a good worker ? better than the graduate of a lesser school (because it?s harder to get into a top school) and better than the person who didn?t graduate or didn?t go at all. And he thinks would be employers are looking for smart and reliable workers ? not just smart. If it were the latter, then they could simply use IQ or even SAT scores as much as degrees.

I?m not sure about Bill W.?s point about using college as networking. I?d like to see some data on that rather than the homespun wisdom. Here if the networking thesis is true, I?d expect the guy who want to Harvard but dropped after after his third year (didn?t get the degree) to have almost as much of a network ? to have met and forged contacts with almost as many people as the graduate. Yet the diploma-holder seems definitely to do better in the job market than the guy who spent almost as time there but didn?t get the diploma.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 19 16:52:39 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 09:52:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure
Message-ID: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>



There is a game in the Science Olympiad called Fermi Questions, where the competitors are challenged into estimating things that are hard to guess even to the nearest order of magnitude, such as 

Placed end to end, what is the length of the churros sold by Disney Land in July of 2018?

How many piano tuners live in the city of Chicago?

What is the weight in orange paint applied to the Golden Gate bridge each year?

That kinda thing, love that game.  A long time ago, I saw a disaster flick called Poseidon Adventure, where a big passenger ship is capsized by a rogue wave, half a dozen gutsy passengers (including a mostly nekkid woman (she was a newlywed doing the newlywed thang at midnight)) climb thru an obstacle course of inverted staircases and such to get to what used to be the bottom of the ship, and it was kinda exciting (whenever the director allowed gratuitous ut deeply appreciated bun shot (hey, I was at that age when I saw the movie)) and eventually they get to the what was once the lowest point on the ship, the propeller shaft, bang on the ceiling, rescuers cut into the hull, see mostly nekkid girl, faint from sudden drop in blood supply  to the brain...

OK I made up that last part but I thought of a fun Fermi question that doesn't even involve the girl:

What is the pressure in the propeller shaft housing when the rescuers cut into it?

I estimated it without any figures or paper, and got very close.  Try it this way: estimate it first, then look up numbers on the internet and calculate it.

Hint: they couldn't have rescued them the way the movie portrayed.

There was a new Poseidon Adventure made more recently, which I didn't see.  Questions for Hollywood hipsters please: How did the new version deal with the pressure differential and how many gratutious bun shots does it offer?

spike




From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 19 18:13:39 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 13:13:39 -0500
Subject: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure
In-Reply-To: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>
References: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYFbG=EyUtK3Y3f58n9knqes7HYd1jVp_YsU2uDONcTqA@mail.gmail.com>

I strongly object to the word 'gratuitous' in your sentence - " gratuitous
bun shot" There just isn't any such a thing.

 bill w

On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 11:57 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> There is a game in the Science Olympiad called Fermi Questions, where the
> competitors are challenged into estimating things that are hard to guess
> even to the nearest order of magnitude, such as
>
> Placed end to end, what is the length of the churros sold by Disney Land
> in July of 2018?
>
> How many piano tuners live in the city of Chicago?
>
> What is the weight in orange paint applied to the Golden Gate bridge each
> year?
>
> That kinda thing, love that game.  A long time ago, I saw a disaster flick
> called Poseidon Adventure, where a big passenger ship is capsized by a
> rogue wave, half a dozen gutsy passengers (including a mostly nekkid woman
> (she was a newlywed doing the newlywed thang at midnight)) climb thru an
> obstacle course of inverted staircases and such to get to what used to be
> the bottom of the ship, and it was kinda exciting (whenever the director
> allowed gratuitous ut deeply appreciated bun shot (hey, I was at that age
> when I saw the movie)) and eventually they get to the what was once the
> lowest point on the ship, the propeller shaft, bang on the ceiling,
> rescuers cut into the hull, see mostly nekkid girl, faint from sudden drop
> in blood supply  to the brain...
>
> OK I made up that last part but I thought of a fun Fermi question that
> doesn't even involve the girl:
>
> What is the pressure in the propeller shaft housing when the rescuers cut
> into it?
>
> I estimated it without any figures or paper, and got very close.  Try it
> this way: estimate it first, then look up numbers on the internet and
> calculate it.
>
> Hint: they couldn't have rescued them the way the movie portrayed.
>
> There was a new Poseidon Adventure made more recently, which I didn't
> see.  Questions for Hollywood hipsters please: How did the new version deal
> with the pressure differential and how many gratutious bun shots does it
> offer?
>
> 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  Tue Mar 19 18:18:00 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 13:18:00 -0500
Subject: [ExI] water filter
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaDS_aGjCkcapX9KnVhG2vCAbh1Ok1H+s0f_LWxk84HKg@mail.gmail.com>

Hey - does anyone have any experience with under the sink water filters, of
the reverse osmosis type?  Thanks!

bill w
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From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 19 18:30:53 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 11:30:53 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYFbG=EyUtK3Y3f58n9knqes7HYd1jVp_YsU2uDONcTqA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYFbG=EyUtK3Y3f58n9knqes7HYd1jVp_YsU2uDONcTqA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <007301d4de81$e329c560$a97d5020$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure

 

I strongly object to the word 'gratuitous' in your sentence - " gratuitous bun shot" There just isn't any such a thing.

 

 bill w

 

 

Well I did say it was greatly appreciated.  {8^D

 

Besides, it?s the rules: all successful Hollywood movies have to have a bit of sizzle.  Think about it Bill: it is so real life.  Every truly life-threatening situation, is there not always some way to get some attractive young unattached woman nekkid?  Every real drama just has tohave that in there somewhere: it?s the rules.  Strict they are.  The movie-goer?s inalienable right it is.  

 

Mere threat of death is better than nothing, but add in the whole bun-flashing thing, and you cover all the bases.  

 

Humans are such a fun silly species.

 

spike

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 19 20:52:45 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 13:52:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure
In-Reply-To: <007301d4de81$e329c560$a97d5020$@rainier66.com>
References: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYFbG=EyUtK3Y3f58n9knqes7HYd1jVp_YsU2uDONcTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <007301d4de81$e329c560$a97d5020$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <001601d4de95$b46d91c0$1d48b540$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 



 

>>?I strongly object to the word 'gratuitous' in your sentence - " gratuitous bun shot" There just isn't any such a thing.

 

 bill w

 

 

>?Well I did say it was greatly appreciated.  {8^D

?

Spike

 

 

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 19 21:01:43 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 16:01:43 -0500
Subject: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure
In-Reply-To: <007301d4de81$e329c560$a97d5020$@rainier66.com>
References: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYFbG=EyUtK3Y3f58n9knqes7HYd1jVp_YsU2uDONcTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <007301d4de81$e329c560$a97d5020$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaLqr8fTP1jUSB8uKLqGB+fdo_Pu+NAS_EVFsAad_N4pw@mail.gmail.com>

Humans are such a fun silly species.

spike


Have you ever noticed that women are rarely silly?  They have been regarded
so by men, just to put them down, but most silliness, not to mention
obsession with sex jokes, sex content, sex anything, is instigated by men?


Who acts silly with grandchildren?  Men,  Dogs?  Men, and so on.
Exceptions exist, but think of men's clubs:  Jackie Gleason's club on The
Honeymooners;  silly hats and other outfits.  Women just don't do these
things.  They laugh at their men and call them little boys, which for some
of their behavior isn't far off at all.  Sports heroes (think of that word)
are given statues as if they had won foreign wars.  And so on.


And maybe it's a good thing, though as usual with men, it's often carried
to far.  And maybe there is a tie-in with creativity - men more creative
(OK women, fight back on this one).


bill w

On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 1:51 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure
>
>
>
> I strongly object to the word 'gratuitous' in your sentence - " gratuitous
> bun shot" There just isn't any such a thing.
>
>
>
>  bill w
>
>
>
>
>
> Well I did say it was greatly appreciated.  {8^D
>
>
>
> Besides, it?s the rules: all successful Hollywood movies have to have a
> bit of sizzle.  Think about it Bill: it is so real life.  Every truly
> life-threatening situation, is there not always some way to get some
> attractive young unattached woman nekkid?  Every real drama just has tohave
> that in there somewhere: it?s the rules.  Strict they are.  The
> movie-goer?s inalienable right it is.
>
>
>
> Mere threat of death is better than nothing, but add in the whole
> bun-flashing thing, and you cover all the bases.
>
>
>
> Humans are such a fun silly species.
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 19 21:06:00 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 14:06:00 -0700
Subject: [ExI] billionehhhs in trouble
Message-ID: <000601d4de97$8eccee50$ac66caf0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Subject: RE: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure

 

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure

 

>>?I strongly object to the word 'gratuitous' in your sentence - " gratuitous bun shot" There just isn't any such a thing.

 

 bill w

 

 

>?Well I did say it was greatly appreciated.  {8^D?spike

 

 

 

 

All this talk about gratuitous this and that had me wondering something perhaps you legal hipsters might know.  I haven?t followed the story, but some sports biggie went to a cathouse in Florida and was recorded, caught.  So now he is facing legal consequences, but all this really got me to thinking: if someone is a billionehh then a hundred bucks one would pay for a legitimate massage and a couple hundred one might pay expecting more service than a normal massage are the same amount of money approximately.  Right?

 

So? a legal defense I could easily imagine is the guy went to a massage place, did not make any special arrangements, did not solicit harlotry in any way, just asked how much, they said couple hundred, he hands it over, never says he wants this or that, she takes him back, gives him an extra treat, no arrangements were ever made, he just paid and she just took care of him.

 

How does that make him a whoremonger?  He wouldn?t even necessarily know she was a whore and perhaps he didn?t actually mong her at all.  He merely paid a higher-than-usual price (but what difference does make to a billionehh in his late 70s?) and she just was? very? um? grateful and did her thang.  Perhaps she wasn?t even a harlot, but was just overwhelmed by the size of his wallet or something, so she just?well, did what humans sometimes do while massaging someone, without being monged by him at all.

 

Legal hipsters, how does it work?  I am so far out of my area of expertise here.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 19 21:27:29 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 14:27:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaLqr8fTP1jUSB8uKLqGB+fdo_Pu+NAS_EVFsAad_N4pw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEYFbG=EyUtK3Y3f58n9knqes7HYd1jVp_YsU2uDONcTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <007301d4de81$e329c560$a97d5020$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEaLqr8fTP1jUSB8uKLqGB+fdo_Pu+NAS_EVFsAad_N4pw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <90E0F694-259B-40B3-A7E1-36B62383EFE6@gmail.com>

On Mar 19, 2019, at 2:01 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Have you ever noticed that women are rarely silly?  They have been regarded so by men, just to put them down, but most silliness, not to mention obsession with sex jokes, sex content, sex anything, is instigated by men? 
> 

I believe that?s more a reflection of a patriarchal culture than of something essential about being a female or being a woman. (That said, what?s silly probably varies from person to person and time to time, though I?m thinking the overall idea that one gender (or sex) can be more silly than the other seems to reveal one gender is allowed to be more silly rather than has some essence or nature that makes them more silly. In other words, women are expected to be prim and proper. This is no different than how in a highly stratified class society, the lower orders are expected to behave and the higher orders usually have much more freedom to misbehave.)

> Who acts silly with grandchildren?  Men,  Dogs?  Men, and so on.  Exceptions exist, but think of men's clubs:  Jackie Gleason's club on The Honeymooners;  silly hats and other outfits.  Women just don't do these things.  They laugh at their men and call them little boys, which for some of their behavior isn't far off at all.  Sports heroes (think of that word) are given statues as if they had won foreign wars.  And so on.  
> 

See above. 

> And maybe it's a good thing, though as usual with men, it's often carried to far.  And maybe there is a tie-in with creativity - men more creative (OK women, fight back on this one).  
> 


I think it?s more correct to say men are _perceived_ as more creative than women. And I think, again, a patriarchal culture reinforces this: creative women are often treated as abnormal, as outliers ? whereas creative men are not treated that way.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 19 22:59:05 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 15:59:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question on poseidon adventure
In-Reply-To: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>
References: <002e01d4de74$2a4562f0$7ed028d0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <005801d4dea7$5a6d3c40$0f47b4c0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 


>...OK I made up that last part but I thought of a fun Fermi question that doesn't even involve the girl:

>...What is the pressure in the propeller shaft housing when the rescuers cut into it?...spike




Here's where I was going with it.  If one estimates the pressure inside the inverted hull, a reasonable BOTEC would be just take the mass of the ship and its dimensions.  I google on passenger ship dimensions, I get:

>...The humongous Royal Caribbean's floating cities Allure and Oasis boast the whole 360 meters in length (1,181 ft), and breadth of 47 meters (154 ft), the unbelievable for a passenger cruise ship tonnage of 225,300 tons...

OK good enough, that gives about 13 tons per square meter.  An atmosphere is about 10 tons per square meter, so about 1.3 atmospheres above ambient.  But... this is a best-case.  If the ship starts to tilt with the bow lower than the stern (as it did in the original 1972 movie) then the surface area upon which the pressure acts is reduced, which increases that pressure dramatically.  Let us ignore that for now and just imagine six survivors trapped down there (including at least one you really want to ogle as much as the PG rating will allow) at 1.3 atmospheres above ambient.

We know the pressure differential on a passenger aircraft, maximum of about half an atmosphere.  The highest an airliner typically flies is around a quarter of an atmosphere and the cabin pressure is about 3 quarters of an atmosphere, so difference is about half an atm.

Now we have the six survivors down there (including the gawk bait) at 1.3 atmospheres above ambient.  How would you get them out?  You can't just cut a hole, for we know what happens when some terrorist manages to punch a hole in an aircraft: stuff gets blown out the hole.  So if they just cut a hole as they did in the movie, people and debris would come blasting out the hole with triple that amount of force, and the ship would disappear beneath the waves in a few seconds.

So... how could you get her out?  THEM rather, I meant THEM of course, ahem.  How would you get her and the others with her out of that pressure vessel?

spike





From avant at sollegro.com  Tue Mar 19 22:59:36 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2019 15:59:36 -0700
Subject: [ExI] elite college bribery scandal
In-Reply-To: <592315663.7139958.1552956729016@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>
 <A9A94CF8-76D8-48A5-95D3-BA32B14567DA@gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaiCcNkTG_fKos0PdpmsXTO+iqi5i8g3M5CDF+L1OdFyA@mail.gmail.com>
 <752587898.7054600.1552948334162@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190318171037.Horde.zynbpfc9Qzwa3fwbg38nFk1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <999BD99E-59EC-486B-B6B2-FC6B14D8BE6B@gmail.com>
 <592315663.7139958.1552956729016@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190319155936.Horde.Ryc2TaT1h5QbpDrTq4VP1yD@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Dan Ust:

> I believe Caplan is saying the degree from a top school doesn?t  
> signal wealth and privilege. (Why would it? It?s obvious that some  
> people can buy their way into a top school, but showing off one?s  
> portfolio would easily display wealth and one can display privilege  
> by having a Park Avenue address.
> Instead, his claim is that it signals you?ll be a good worker ?  
> better than the graduate of a lesser school (because it?s harder to  
> get into a top school) and better than the person who didn?t  
> graduate or didn?t go at all. And he thinks would be employers are  
> looking for smart and reliable workers ? not just smart. If it were  
> the latter, then they could simply use IQ or even SAT scores as much  
> as degrees.


Well since I have not read Caplan's book and am largely going off of  
your description of it, I will accept your interpretation of what he  
meant by "signalling". However in biology, signalling generally means  
an expensive display meant to attract a mate like a peacock's tail or  
a ferrari so I apologize for the confusion.

That being said, why shouldn't employers hire people on the basis of  
test scores? Maybe not IQ or SAT but something germane to the  
employer's industry. Is it any less impressive that some person passed  
a state bar exam by studying on his own rather than by going to a  
fancy law school? Especially since earning a degree does not  
necessarily imply that any of the knowledge was retained beyond  
graduation.

> I?m not sure about Bill W.?s point about using college as  
> networking. I?d like to see some data on that rather than the  
> homespun wisdom.

Here is some recent data:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/22/study-finds-graduates-most-selective-colleges-enjoy-earnings-payoff

"There are many fine colleges below the top Ivies and privates, and  
many of those are very hard to get into, but the graduates of the most  
selective colleges, like the Ivies and other top 20 colleges, do get  
considerably better-paying jobs. A very smart, hardworking student who  
gets into a college below the very top level of selectivity does not  
earn the same as one who gets into one of the most selective  
colleges," he said. "This explains, perhaps, why there is such an  
intense or frantic competition to get into those very top-ranked  
colleges. It has substantial implications for future earnings."

> Here if the networking thesis is true, I?d expect the guy who want  
> to Harvard but dropped after after his third year (didn?t get the  
> degree) to have almost as much of a network ? to have met and forged  
> contacts with almost as many people as the graduate. Yet the  
> diploma-holder seems definitely to do better in the job market than  
> the guy who spent almost as time there but didn?t get the diploma.

Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk  
all dropped out of Ivy League schools and so could be considered  
evidence (albeit anecdotal rather than statistical) that getting  
accepted to and then dropping out of an Ivy League school is a better  
strategy than completing a degree at a public university.

Stuart LaForge




From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 20 15:09:10 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 10:09:10 -0500
Subject: [ExI] privacy
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>

Just after Spike's revelation that he had received ads related to his
conversation with his wife in a car, presumably picked up by his mobile, I
went shopping for under the counter water filter systems - Aquasana, for
one.

Then I logged on the the Clarion Ledger - local paper - and found a big ad
for Aquasana.  I have never seen an ad for water filter systems anywhere,
so I assume this is not coincidence.

Just how did they get the information?  I used my Chromebook to go to
Amazon and to the Aquasana web site.

Have any of you experience anything like this?  Or like Spike's?  Could
Aquasana have put a cookie, or something like it, on my computer that the
newspaper site read?

This is really creepy.

bill w
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From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 20 15:52:50 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 08:52:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2019 8:09 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: [ExI] privacy

 

Just after Spike's revelation that he had received ads related to his conversation with his wife in a car, presumably picked up by his mobile, I went shopping for under the counter water filter systems - Aquasana, for one.

 

Then I logged on the the Clarion Ledger - local paper - and found a big ad for Aquasana.  I have never seen an ad for water filter systems anywhere, so I assume this is not coincidence.

 

Just how did they get the information?  I used my Chromebook to go to Amazon and to the Aquasana web site.

 

Have any of you experience anything like this?  Or like Spike's?  Could Aquasana have put a cookie, or something like it, on my computer that the newspaper site read?

 

This is really creepy.

 

bill w 

 

 

 

BillW of course if you shop online for anything, you will be pummeled mercilessly for weeks by purveyors of that product.  Nothing particularly creepy about that: the reason the WWW grew and prospered is that there are skerjillions of ways to hawk one?s wares there.  So there was a lotta lotta money behind its explosive growth.  Cool!  

 

What I want to know now is if one enters the name of a product into the Google line without hitting Return, will it figure out what I was looking to buy?  I have a Google window open right now.  I enter ?Wool sweater for sale? but I did not hit Enter.  I will leave it there for a few minutes, then delete it without ever entering any site or search list.  Then I will see if I get wool sweater spam.

 

spike

 

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From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 20 16:18:39 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 09:18:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE:  privacy
Message-ID: <00a501d4df38$946ab210$bd401630$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 



>?BillW of course if you shop online for anything, you will be pummeled mercilessly for weeks by purveyors of that product.  Nothing particularly creepy about that: the reason the WWW grew and prospered is that there are skerjillions of ways to hawk one?s wares there.  So there was a lotta lotta money behind its explosive growth.  Cool!  

 

>?What I want to know now is if one enters the name of a product into the Google line without hitting Return, will it figure out what I was looking to buy?  I have a Google window open right now.  I enter ?Wool sweater for sale? but I did not hit Enter.  I will leave it there for a few minutes, then delete it without ever entering any site or search list.  Then I will see if I get wool sweater spam.  spike

 

 

OK cool, it?s what I already knew: if you Google on something you want to buy, your ad-driven sites will send you ads for that.  No mystery, that?s how they make their living and why they give you free information on stuff you care about, no problem.  I entered wool sweater for sale, a few minutes later accidentally hit return, OK we know what happens.  Then I entered Pickup truck tires for sale, didn?t hit return, didn?t get ads (so far.)

 

OK no surprises.

 

Now I want to find out how much the great internet marketplace can learn from my Google searches and my clickstreams, and I want to repeat the phone hotspot experiment, see if I can replicate what happened before.  It might have been a coincidence, or the phone might have figured out my location (near one of the biggest wind generation areas) and sent me ads based on that, guessing that I went there to see the turbines.  I might even be able to explain the hoodie ads that way too: I was near-ish to some textile mills.  Shrugs.

 

Here?s what we should do: design some experiments find out what the market can find out about us.

 

Ideas?

 

spike

 

 

 

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Mar 20 16:29:07 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:29:07 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Quantum Tunneling
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3Ln-MyQ0Cc2GA5V4C1d2xR91aEZMA-Ybjmee8LKeb5vw@mail.gmail.com>

A new upper bound on the time it takes for an electron to get through a
barrier by Quantum Tunneling has been found. They found it takes less than 1.8
attoseconds, perhaps 1.8 attoseconds less. They say their experimental
results are "in agreement with recent theoretical findings" and "present a
compelling argument for instantaneous tunnelling".  One attosecond is to a
second as one second is to 32 years.

Tunnelling time in atomic hydrogen
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1028-3>

John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 20 17:19:39 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:19:39 -0500
Subject: [ExI] privacy
In-Reply-To: <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZ=kd7OvVWYH9tcvSXGHgt65WkJgTeEtKLeNZHnEs-6Hg@mail.gmail.com>

I understand that I will get ads on Google, on web sites, on my computer
and in email, though I did not give my email address to Aquasana.  What I
don't get is how the newspaper got the info that I was on Amazon and the
Aquasana web site.  They have not responded to my inquiry, nor has
Aquasana.  Aquasana will get punished if they don't respond by my buying
another product and letting them know that.

bill w

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 10:57 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 20, 2019 8:09 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* [ExI] privacy
>
>
>
> Just after Spike's revelation that he had received ads related to his
> conversation with his wife in a car, presumably picked up by his mobile, I
> went shopping for under the counter water filter systems - Aquasana, for
> one.
>
>
>
> Then I logged on the the Clarion Ledger - local paper - and found a big ad
> for Aquasana.  I have never seen an ad for water filter systems anywhere,
> so I assume this is not coincidence.
>
>
>
> Just how did they get the information?  I used my Chromebook to go to
> Amazon and to the Aquasana web site.
>
>
>
> Have any of you experience anything like this?  Or like Spike's?  Could
> Aquasana have put a cookie, or something like it, on my computer that the
> newspaper site read?
>
>
>
> This is really creepy.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> BillW of course if you shop online for anything, you will be pummeled
> mercilessly for weeks by purveyors of that product.  Nothing particularly
> creepy about that: the reason the WWW grew and prospered is that there are
> skerjillions of ways to hawk one?s wares there.  So there was a lotta lotta
> money behind its explosive growth.  Cool!
>
>
>
> What I want to know now is if one enters the name of a product into the
> Google line without hitting Return, will it figure out what I was looking
> to buy?  I have a Google window open right now.  I enter ?Wool sweater for
> sale? but I did not hit Enter.  I will leave it there for a few minutes,
> then delete it without ever entering any site or search list.  Then I will
> see if I get wool sweater spam.
>
>
>
> 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  Wed Mar 20 17:21:24 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:21:24 -0500
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy
In-Reply-To: <00a501d4df38$946ab210$bd401630$@rainier66.com>
References: <00a501d4df38$946ab210$bd401630$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZD3C0s444STjr8iPXZOnQsESGMOFqg4HNoyy=0K06BGw@mail.gmail.com>

Good.  I am busy with garden workers today but will think about it.  What
else I want to know is how did they get your email address?
>From Google?

bill w

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 11:23 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com>
>
> >?BillW of course if you shop online for anything, you will be pummeled
> mercilessly for weeks by purveyors of that product.  Nothing particularly
> creepy about that: the reason the WWW grew and prospered is that there are
> skerjillions of ways to hawk one?s wares there.  So there was a lotta lotta
> money behind its explosive growth.  Cool!
>
>
>
> >?What I want to know now is if one enters the name of a product into the
> Google line without hitting Return, will it figure out what I was looking
> to buy?  I have a Google window open right now.  I enter ?Wool sweater for
> sale? but I did not hit Enter.  I will leave it there for a few minutes,
> then delete it without ever entering any site or search list.  Then I will
> see if I get wool sweater spam.  spike
>
>
>
>
>
> OK cool, it?s what I already knew: if you Google on something you want to
> buy, your ad-driven sites will send you ads for that.  No mystery, that?s
> how they make their living and why they give you free information on stuff
> you care about, no problem.  I entered wool sweater for sale, a few minutes
> later accidentally hit return, OK we know what happens.  Then I entered
> Pickup truck tires for sale, didn?t hit return, didn?t get ads (so far.)
>
>
>
> OK no surprises.
>
>
>
> Now I want to find out how much the great internet marketplace can learn
> from my Google searches and my clickstreams, and I want to repeat the phone
> hotspot experiment, see if I can replicate what happened before.  It might
> have been a coincidence, or the phone might have figured out my location
> (near one of the biggest wind generation areas) and sent me ads based on
> that, guessing that I went there to see the turbines.  I might even be able
> to explain the hoodie ads that way too: I was near-ish to some textile
> mills.  Shrugs.
>
>
>
> Here?s what we should do: design some experiments find out what the market
> can find out about us.
>
>
>
> Ideas?
>
>
>
> 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 hartreef at hartreef.cnc.net  Wed Mar 20 17:09:53 2019
From: hartreef at hartreef.cnc.net (hartreef at hartreef.cnc.net)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 13:09:53 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Quantum Tunneling
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3Ln-MyQ0Cc2GA5V4C1d2xR91aEZMA-Ybjmee8LKeb5vw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv3Ln-MyQ0Cc2GA5V4C1d2xR91aEZMA-Ybjmee8LKeb5vw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1553101793.58nzvfa7wkc4s44o@hostingemail.digitalspace.net>


	


Isn't that one attosecond is to a second as one second is to 32 billion years.

But what's nine orders of magnitude among friends. :).

Kyle Webb


On Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:29:07 -0400, John Clark  wrote:
&nbsp;
A new upper bound on the&nbsp;time it takes for an electron to get through a barrier by Quantum Tunneling has been found. They found it takes less than&nbsp;1.8 attoseconds, perhaps 1.8 attoseconds less. They&nbsp;say their experimental results are "in agreement with recent theoretical findings" and "present a compelling argument for instantaneous tunnelling".&nbsp; One attosecond is to a second as one second is to 32 years.
&nbsp;

Tunnelling time in atomic hydrogen

&nbsp;


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 giulio at gmail.com  Wed Mar 20 17:57:27 2019
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 18:57:27 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Quantum Tunneling
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3Ln-MyQ0Cc2GA5V4C1d2xR91aEZMA-Ybjmee8LKeb5vw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv3Ln-MyQ0Cc2GA5V4C1d2xR91aEZMA-Ybjmee8LKeb5vw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKTCJyfekT2A5cLAB9hkRswaLAyYwG1aJsgPDE=7ZOGJG0Pf4g@mail.gmail.com>

Very interesting. Open arXiv version of the paper here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.05445

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 5:33 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> A new upper bound on the time it takes for an electron to get through a
> barrier by Quantum Tunneling has been found. They found it takes less than 1.8
> attoseconds, perhaps 1.8 attoseconds less. They say their experimental
> results are "in agreement with recent theoretical findings" and "present
> a compelling argument for instantaneous tunnelling".  One attosecond is
> to a second as one second is to 32 years.
>
> Tunnelling time in atomic hydrogen
> <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1028-3>
>
> 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 avant at sollegro.com  Wed Mar 20 18:49:52 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 11:49:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE:  privacy
Message-ID: <20190320114952.Horde.23I3eVmxmAQDdiYq9QUpVPX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Spike and Bill Wallace:


> From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com>

>> ?BillW of course if you shop online for anything, you will be  
>> pummeled mercilessly for weeks by purveyors of that product.   
>> Nothing particularly creepy about that: the reason the WWW grew and  
>> prospered is that there are skerjillions of ways to hawk one?s  
>> wares there.  So there was a lotta lotta money behind its explosive  
>> growth.  Cool!
>
>
>
>> ?What I want to know now is if one enters the name of a product  
>> into the Google line without hitting Return, will it figure out  
>> what I was looking to buy?  I have a Google window open right now.   
>> I enter ?Wool sweater for sale? but I did not hit Enter.  I will  
>> leave it there for a few minutes, then delete it without ever  
>> entering any site or search list.  Then I will see if I get wool  
>> sweater spam.  spike
>
>
>
>
>
> OK cool, it?s what I already knew: if you Google on something you  
> want to buy, your ad-driven sites will send you ads for that.  No  
> mystery, that?s how they make their living and why they give you  
> free information on stuff you care about, no problem.  I entered  
> wool sweater for sale, a few minutes later accidentally hit return,  
> OK we know what happens.  Then I entered Pickup truck tires for  
> sale, didn?t hit return, didn?t get ads (so far.)
>
>
>
> OK no surprises.
>
>
>
> Now I want to find out how much the great internet marketplace can  
> learn from my Google searches and my clickstreams, and I want to  
> repeat the phone hotspot experiment, see if I can replicate what  
> happened before.  It might have been a coincidence, or the phone  
> might have figured out my location (near one of the biggest wind  
> generation areas) and sent me ads based on that, guessing that I  
> went there to see the turbines.  I might even be able to explain the  
> hoodie ads that way too: I was near-ish to some textile mills.   
> Shrugs.
>

Welcome to the surveillance economy where YOU are the commodity. If  
you have an android, Google tracks your location by default. Here is a  
good list of personal data that Google and Facebook collect on you:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/28/all-the-data-facebook-google-has-on-you-privacy

Any time you install a phone app that requests microphone or camera  
access, you ought to assume that such app is listening or watching  
you. Both Edward Snowden, James Comey, and other notable people have  
recommended keeping a piece of tape over any camera connected to the  
Internet when you are not using it.

After parsing the data for information that can be used to market to  
you, most of the information is just stored both on your phone and on  
the cloud, until one becomes a "person of interest" to law  
enforcement. After that, all bets are off.


> Here?s what we should do: design some experiments find out what the  
> market can find out about us.
>
> Ideas?

That's an interesting idea, Spike. I will think about it. Like I said,  
much of the information is unlikely to be brought to a human's  
attention unless you get "flagged" for whatever reason. Although, I  
doubt that surveillance tech like Stingray or Triggerfish can be kept  
out of the hands of hackers. So in addition to law enforcement, one  
may have to worry about being spied on by scriptkiddies and such.

If you buy a fancy toaster that connects to the Internet, assume it is  
spying on you or can be remotely controlled to burn your toast.

Stuart LaForge


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Mar 20 19:21:28 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 15:21:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Quantum Tunneling
In-Reply-To: <1553101793.58nzvfa7wkc4s44o@hostingemail.digitalspace.net>
References: <CAJPayv3Ln-MyQ0Cc2GA5V4C1d2xR91aEZMA-Ybjmee8LKeb5vw@mail.gmail.com>
 <1553101793.58nzvfa7wkc4s44o@hostingemail.digitalspace.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1YK1SUW4TgTuV7D7x5EsSPfVOTsGtTcGLN7f7e1cPUpQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 1:50 PM <hartreef at hartreef.cnc.net> wrote:

> Isn't that one attosecond is to a second as one second is to 32 billion
> years.
> But what's nine orders of magnitude among friends. :).
> Kyle Webb
>

Yes you're absolutely right, I looked it up and a attosecond is 10^-18
seconds and there are 10^18 seconds in 32 billion years.

John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 20 19:40:42 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:40:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZD3C0s444STjr8iPXZOnQsESGMOFqg4HNoyy=0K06BGw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00a501d4df38$946ab210$bd401630$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZD3C0s444STjr8iPXZOnQsESGMOFqg4HNoyy=0K06BGw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01a701d4df54$cecac870$6c605950$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy

 

Good.  I am busy with garden workers today but will think about it.  What else I want to know is how did they get your email address?

>From Google?

 

bill w

 

 

 

Mine would be easy: I am registered in Amazon Prime.  So ja, I already sold my soul to Beelzosbub.

 

Regarding the ads I got while on a camping trip along the Columbia, that wasn?t in my email, it was in the banner ads on either side of the content in those sites which make their living by selling ad space.  I didn?t get any hoodie or turbine email.  This is why this test was ambiguous: the ISP I connected to at the campsite might be able to signal to advertisers where you are.  There are a lotta wind turbines along the Columbia.

 

spike

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 20 19:49:08 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 14:49:08 -0500
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy
In-Reply-To: <01a701d4df54$cecac870$6c605950$@rainier66.com>
References: <00a501d4df38$946ab210$bd401630$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZD3C0s444STjr8iPXZOnQsESGMOFqg4HNoyy=0K06BGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01a701d4df54$cecac870$6c605950$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaK-ZhiB1_sXLyWMSnxO-V8bUsCC-Ex7drqnuzTQGdPHg@mail.gmail.com>

How to block Android:  just turn it off,or do I have to take the battery
out?

I assume that I can block any cookies from Amazon or whoever,but you have
to turn cookies on at some web sites or they won't function for you.  So
then, turn them on, use the web site, erase all cookies and block cookies?
bill w

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 2:45 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy
>
>
>
> Good.  I am busy with garden workers today but will think about it.  What
> else I want to know is how did they get your email address?
>
> From Google?
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Mine would be easy: I am registered in Amazon Prime.  So ja, I already
> sold my soul to Beelzosbub.
>
>
>
> Regarding the ads I got while on a camping trip along the Columbia, that
> wasn?t in my email, it was in the banner ads on either side of the content
> in those sites which make their living by selling ad space.  I didn?t get
> any hoodie or turbine email.  This is why this test was ambiguous: the ISP
> I connected to at the campsite might be able to signal to advertisers where
> you are.  There are a lotta wind turbines along the Columbia.
>
>
>
> 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 spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 20 19:50:38 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:50:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE:  privacy
In-Reply-To: <20190320114952.Horde.23I3eVmxmAQDdiYq9QUpVPX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190320114952.Horde.23I3eVmxmAQDdiYq9QUpVPX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <01ba01d4df56$31d57040$958050c0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Stuart LaForge
...

>...That's an interesting idea, Spike. I will think about it. Like I said,
much of the information is unlikely to be brought to a human's attention
unless you get "flagged" for whatever reason. Although, I doubt that
surveillance tech like Stingray or Triggerfish can be kept out of the hands
of hackers. So in addition to law enforcement, one may have to worry about
being spied on by scriptkiddies and such...

Ja there is that.  I am one of those who has (so far) no reason to hide
anything I am doing.  At some future time I can see it, but my life is still
more private than my cousin's children.  They post eeeeverything about every
detail of their lives on FaceBook.  I don't see why anyone would care about
my life if they have the option of watching the young and beautiful, free.
I hafta wonder what impact this has had on the porno industry, when anyone
can get online and just get everything free.  National Geographic must be
struggling to survive.


>...If you buy a fancy toaster that connects to the Internet, assume it is
spying on you or can be remotely controlled to burn your toast...Stuart
LaForge

_______________________________________________


Oh think of the gags we could play with that.  The mind boggles.

spike


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 21 00:11:28 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:11:28 -0500
Subject: [ExI] couple of science books
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZD0UHGE3ZUd5iOa+0-wWejBUFsxdKx7HZbUZrDuW7GMQ@mail.gmail.com>

For the layman (perhaps that should stay the same - if I write 'for the
layman or laywoman' it might cause comment).

Stuff Matter - material science
Liquid Rules - how liquids act

Both by Miodownik - very easy to read; very enjoyable, esp. the first one,
about which I knew nothing

bill w
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From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar 21 00:12:27 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:12:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] billionehhhs in trouble
In-Reply-To: <000601d4de97$8eccee50$ac66caf0$@rainier66.com>
References: <000601d4de97$8eccee50$ac66caf0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRUnCjwy5rDxt57qg4OB=cgePwaQ3ixN=NvoqiM8moh3w@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 2:21 PM <spike at rainier66.com wrote:

> Legal hipsters, how does it work?  I am so far out of my area of expertise
> here.
>

The defense you propose - that those with lots of money have lowered
sensitivities to price, which diminishes their capacity for intent (and
thus their ability to commit crime) - is known as "affluenza".  Last I
heard, it is generally rejected as a valid defense in US courts.

>
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From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar 21 00:17:44 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:17:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaK-ZhiB1_sXLyWMSnxO-V8bUsCC-Ex7drqnuzTQGdPHg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <00a501d4df38$946ab210$bd401630$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZD3C0s444STjr8iPXZOnQsESGMOFqg4HNoyy=0K06BGw@mail.gmail.com>
 <01a701d4df54$cecac870$6c605950$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEaK-ZhiB1_sXLyWMSnxO-V8bUsCC-Ex7drqnuzTQGdPHg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTc07v0WgjLTxwnW3T0CkhQSR1TS371zP9jsU_Pf7UHYw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 1:07 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
wrote:

> How to block Android:  just turn it off,or do I have to take the battery
> out?
>

Just turn it off, but make sure the phone is off, not just the screen.  It
should go through a power off sequence taking a few seconds, and quickly
tapping the power button afterward should not immediately turn it back on.

>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 21 00:39:51 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:39:51 -0700
Subject: [ExI] billionehhhs in trouble
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRUnCjwy5rDxt57qg4OB=cgePwaQ3ixN=NvoqiM8moh3w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <000601d4de97$8eccee50$ac66caf0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNRUnCjwy5rDxt57qg4OB=cgePwaQ3ixN=NvoqiM8moh3w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <02a301d4df7e$98ec18b0$cac44a10$@rainier66.com>

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2019 5:12 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] billionehhhs in trouble

 

On Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 2:21 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com>  wrote:

Legal hipsters, how does it work?  I am so far out of my area of expertise here.

 

The defense you propose - that those with lots of money have lowered sensitivities to price, which diminishes their capacity for intent (and thus their ability to commit crime) - is known as "affluenza".  Last I heard, it is generally rejected as a valid defense in US courts.

 

 

 

Ja, but if a billionehhh with plenty of money for a competent defender follows the letter of the law, perhaps even carrying a personal audio recording device, and never uttered a word about his expectations, I would think that would hold.

 

I am so far out of my own expertise here, even I have no idea what a legitimate non-copulatory massage costs.  Never had one, have no intentions of doing so.  I have a vague idea what one might pay for illegitimate services, even though I have a similar lack of firsthand experience (or even secondhand for that matter.)  From what I can tell, those two numbers aren?t far apart at all.  One service requires actual training, which I would think would be (if anything) more expensive than the traditional service.

 

He could have never uttered a word about his expectations.  No law broken there.

 

spike

 

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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Mar 21 00:41:17 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:41:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy
Message-ID: <20190320174117.Horde.cflQt4Gv3EMsfAFd7ml7o-Z@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Bill Wallace:

> How to block Android:? just turn it off,or do I have to take the battery out?

Taking the battery out is a 100% reliable long term solution.

Other short term privacy options are to put your phone into some kind  
of Faraday cage where it is surrounded by metal. It won't be able to  
transmit or receive signals so you won't get calls or texts either.  
You can buy a metal box for this, wrap it in aluminum foil, or just  
put in in the microwave oven (don't turn the microwave on).

The problem with "shuting it off" is that your phone can be remotely  
infected with a trojan made to display the shut off screen and look  
like it is powering down when really it is being rebooted into a "spy  
mode":

https://techpp.com/2013/08/22/track-phone-turned-off/

> I assume that I can block any cookies from Amazon or whoever,but you  
> have to turn cookies on at some web sites or they won't function for  
> you.? So then, turn them on, use the web site, erase all cookies and  
> block cookies?

Choose your battles. Block the cookies from sites you don't want to  
know about you, and accept the ones you find useful. You can also pay  
for a VPN if you want more privacy or switch to a secure browser like  
Tor. Generally if you log into a website that already has your name,  
you might as well take their cookie. But if you don't want them to  
have your name, no cookie. Better yet, use Tor browser to visit them.

Stuart LaForge



From danust2012 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 21 01:15:03 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 18:15:03 -0700
Subject: [ExI] couple of science books
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZD0UHGE3ZUd5iOa+0-wWejBUFsxdKx7HZbUZrDuW7GMQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZD0UHGE3ZUd5iOa+0-wWejBUFsxdKx7HZbUZrDuW7GMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <53A9F495-CFAD-4EB6-84E1-4637031E86B3@gmail.com>

On Mar 20, 2019, at 5:11 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> For the layman (perhaps that should stay the same - if I write 'for the layman or laywoman' it might cause comment).
> 
> Stuff Matter - material science
> Liquid Rules - how liquids act
> 
> Both by Miodownik - very easy to read; very enjoyable, esp. the first one, about which I knew nothing

Thanks for the suggestions.

Have you seen _Built: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Structures_ by Roma Agrawal? Looks like something you might enjoy.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Mar 21 01:25:28 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 18:25:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy
In-Reply-To: <815012021.8424667.1553125370653@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20190320114952.Horde.23I3eVmxmAQDdiYq9QUpVPX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <01ba01d4df56$31d57040$958050c0$@rainier66.com>
 <815012021.8424667.1553125370653@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190320182528.Horde.HsdDzaKXKJxLORpf78y0sd4@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting Spike:


> Ja there is that.? I am one of those who has (so far) no reason to hide
> anything I am doing.? At some future time I can see it, but my life is still
> more private than my cousin's children.? They post eeeeverything about every
> detail of their lives on FaceBook.? I don't see why anyone would care about
> my life if they have the option of watching the young and beautiful, free.
> I hafta wonder what impact this has had on the porno industry, when anyone
> can get online and just get everything free.? National Geographic must be
> struggling to survive.

Your cousins have a right to make as much of their lives public as  
they want, just as you have a right to keep as much of your life  
private as you want. Just keep in mind that any information you put  
online is public to the nth degree and companies whose business model  
involves keeping your information secret can't. Looking at you, Equifax.

To quote Edward Snowden:  ?Arguing that you don't care about the right  
to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than  
saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to  
say.?

I think that a completely transparent society will cause us to lose  
even the illusion of individuality causing us to evolve into some kind  
of collective hive mind. That is neither good nor bad in and of  
itself. The question simply is, is that what we want?

Stuart LaForge



From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Mar 21 02:32:06 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:32:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] billionehhhs in trouble
In-Reply-To: <02a301d4df7e$98ec18b0$cac44a10$@rainier66.com>
References: <000601d4de97$8eccee50$ac66caf0$@rainier66.com>
 <CALAdGNRUnCjwy5rDxt57qg4OB=cgePwaQ3ixN=NvoqiM8moh3w@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNRcf60k=_cM_q6S4_kzf_5LgKMc93UZZnYsUq+LJwV9sw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 5:51 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> Ja, but if a billionehhh with plenty of money for a competent defender follows the letter of the law, perhaps even carrying a personal audio recording device, and never uttered a word about his expectations, I would think that would hold.

You're talking hypothetical, as if it's something new.  I'm talking
prior experience, because it isn't new.  That sort of defense hasn't
held up, when it has been tried.

From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 21 04:31:04 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 21:31:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy: was: RE: privacy
In-Reply-To: <20190320182528.Horde.HsdDzaKXKJxLORpf78y0sd4@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190320114952.Horde.23I3eVmxmAQDdiYq9QUpVPX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
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Message-ID: <030d01d4df9e$e5b75090$b125f1b0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge


>...To quote Edward Snowden:  ?Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.?

I disagree completely.  Those two things are not the same at all.

Americans have the right to free speech, a right I feel is under fierce attack now more than ever.  It has never been clear to me we have the right to privacy outside our homes.  I completely recognize there are those who object to that notion.

>...I think that a completely transparent society will cause us to lose even the illusion of individuality causing us to evolve into some kind of collective hive mind. That is neither good nor bad in and of itself. The question simply is, is that what we want?

Stuart LaForge
____________________________________________


Good question Stuart, and definitely something to think about.

spike



From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Mar 21 11:45:34 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 11:45:34 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Quantum Tunneling
In-Reply-To: <CAKTCJyfekT2A5cLAB9hkRswaLAyYwG1aJsgPDE=7ZOGJG0Pf4g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv3Ln-MyQ0Cc2GA5V4C1d2xR91aEZMA-Ybjmee8LKeb5vw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKTCJyfekT2A5cLAB9hkRswaLAyYwG1aJsgPDE=7ZOGJG0Pf4g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhpMauWRw8v+jR=g9TFv0JtCLDiVhV_rUeJVGOcE=stJA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, 20 Mar 2019 at 18:03, Giulio Prisco wrote:
> Very interesting. Open arXiv version of the paper here:
> https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.05445
>
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 5:33 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> A new upper bound on the time it takes for an electron to get through a barrier by Quantum Tunneling has been found. They found it takes less than 1.8 attoseconds, perhaps 1.8 attoseconds less. They say their experimental results are "in agreement with recent theoretical findings" and "present a compelling argument for instantaneous tunnelling".  One attosecond is to a second as one second is to 32 years.
>>
>> Tunnelling time in atomic hydrogen
>>

But 'instantaneous tunnelling' doesn't mean 'faster than light' as
some news reports claimed.
It's complicated though - explained here:
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/03/21/no-quantum-tunneling-didnt-break-the-speed-of-light-nothing-does/>

Quote:
You might think, based on what you just read about the speed of
quantum tunneling being instantaneous, that this means that particles
can travel infinitely fast, breaking the speed of light, through a
quantum mechanical barrier of finite, non-zero thickness. That's the
misinterpretation that always crops up, and how people fool themselves
(and unscrupulous news organizations try to fool you) into thinking
they're breaking the speed of light.

But all that's happening here is a portion of the quantum particles
found in the pulse tunnels through the barrier, while the majority of
the particles does what tennis balls do: they bounce back, failing to
arrive at the destination. If you can front-load which particles make
it through the barrier, preferentially cutting off the particles in
the back of the pulse, you'll falsely measure a faster-than-light
speed, even though no individual particle actually breaks the speed of
light.
---------

BillK


From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Mar 21 12:11:53 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 12:11:53 +0000
Subject: [ExI] When small societies reach c.1 million - religion appears
Message-ID: <CAL_armhUfai42ha6_pUiM8EvPgFJUd2iVcxBe0u2NUQTZrfPvg@mail.gmail.com>

Interesting.....

When Ancient Societies Hit a Million People, Vengeful Gods Appeared
By Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | March 20, 2019

<https://www.livescience.com/65039-punishing-gods-rise-with-complex-societies.html>

Quote:
"It was particularly striking how consistent it was [that] this
phenomenon emerged at the million-person level," Savage said. "First,
you get big societies, and these beliefs then come."

All in all, "our research suggests that religion is playing a
functional role throughout world history, helping stabilize societies
and people cooperate overall," Savage said. "In really small
societies, like very small groups of hunter-gatherers, everyone knows
everyone else, and everyone's keeping an eye on everyone else to make
sure they're behaving well. Bigger societies are more anonymous, so
you might not know who to trust."

At those sizes, you see the rise of beliefs in an all-powerful,
supernatural person watching and keeping things under control, Savage
added.
-------------

To me that seems to say that when humans feel things are getting out
of control, they need to feel that 'somebody or something' is still
controlling things. That could also explain the creation of conspiracy
theories. Humans really don't like the idea that the universe is
uncaring and heartless random chance.


BillK

From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Mar 21 19:10:26 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 12:10:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy
In-Reply-To: <1491377809.8512935.1553143234570@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20190320114952.Horde.23I3eVmxmAQDdiYq9QUpVPX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <01ba01d4df56$31d57040$958050c0$@rainier66.com>
 <815012021.8424667.1553125370653@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190320182528.Horde.HsdDzaKXKJxLORpf78y0sd4@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <030d01d4df9e$e5b75090$b125f1b0$@rainier66.com>
 <1491377809.8512935.1553143234570@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190321121026.Horde.xYbjxJoitXmu0Fn27M4rIOg@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Spike wrote:

>> ...To quote Edward Snowden:? ?Arguing that you don't care about the  
>> right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different  
>> than saying you don't care about free speech because you have  
>> nothing to say.?
>
> I disagree completely.? Those two things are not the same at all.
>
> Americans have the right to free speech, a right I feel is under  
> fierce attack now more than ever.? It has never been clear to me we  
> have the right to privacy outside our homes.? I completely recognize  
> there are those who object to that notion.

The 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,  
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be  
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,  
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the  
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I am no SCOTUS judge but I think that "papers" is the 18th century  
equivalent of "data". That is to say that if electronic media were  
available to the Founders, they would have included it in this  
amendment.

Also everything that is connected to the Internet is "in public" now  
even if it inside your home. In fact, it would seem that your home no  
longer has an "inside" with regards to the law, if you have so much as  
a cell phone in your home.

If the police cannot search your house for your friend the criminal  
without a warrant, why should they be able to search your phone  
contacts list for the same person without a warrant? Because they  
consider it metadata instead of data? That is a distinction without a  
difference as they are both electronically stored Shannon information  
that ought to belong exclusively to YOU.

Stuart LaForge




>
>> ...I think that a completely transparent society will cause us to  
>> lose even the illusion of individuality causing us to evolve into  
>> some kind of collective hive mind. That is neither good nor bad in  
>> and of itself. The question simply is, is that what we want?
> ____________________________________________
>
>
> Good question Stuart, and definitely something to think about.
>
> spike
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat




From spike at rainier66.com  Thu Mar 21 21:35:49 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 14:35:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy
In-Reply-To: <20190321121026.Horde.xYbjxJoitXmu0Fn27M4rIOg@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190320114952.Horde.23I3eVmxmAQDdiYq9QUpVPX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <01ba01d4df56$31d57040$958050c0$@rainier66.com>
 <815012021.8424667.1553125370653@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190320182528.Horde.HsdDzaKXKJxLORpf78y0sd4@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <030d01d4df9e$e5b75090$b125f1b0$@rainier66.com>
 <1491377809.8512935.1553143234570@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190321121026.Horde.xYbjxJoitXmu0Fn27M4rIOg@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <008f01d4e02e$0de780a0$29b681e0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge

>
>>... Americans have the right to free speech, a right I feel is under 
> fierce attack now more than ever.  It has never been clear to me we 
> have the right to privacy outside our homes.  I completely recognize 
> there are those who object to that notion...  spike

>...I am no SCOTUS judge but I think that "papers" is the 18th century equivalent of "data". That is to say that if electronic media were available to the Founders, they would have included it in this amendment...Stuart LaForge


All this worries me Stuart.  

Around the time of the 9/11 attacks, the US put into effect a bunch of laws that can under some circumstances, go around the 4th amendment.  It really made us nervous at the time, for it represents an expansion of government power.  Power corrupts.

More recently, a dossier was created which was used as evidence to justify a warrant to spy on American citizens, particularly those connected to a particular candidate.  The candidate won anyway, but now we are finding out the dossier itself may have been unverified, and if unverified information was used to obtain a FISA warrant, then that warrant was illegal as all hell.  Regardless of who it was helping or hurting politically, it represents a gross abuse of the FISA process, for which there have been no legal consequences.

If there are no legal consequences for hiring a third party to create evidence against one's political adversaries, it will be done again.  And again.  Power corrupts.

This would effectively repeal the 4th amendment.  If any part of the Bill of Rights is repealed or by any means defeated, Americans have no rights.

spike



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Mar 22 19:33:32 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2019 14:33:32 -0500
Subject: [ExI] pc
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEayQUDV9-tky5mKa+d-Fg3epeJyOKk2puEYMhFO5aFeXg@mail.gmail.com>

Something to be thankful for.  Somehow the term 'politically correct' has
been used instead of 'socially correct', which is far more descriptive of
the situations of racism, sexism, and so on.

PC is strongly in use if you are a member of a political party, but if you
are not, you don't have to worry about making statements that are contrary
to the ideals of your government - esp. the one in place.  Such is not the
case in many other places:  you have to support the regime or else be
reported to the secret police.

We don't have that situation - yet.  I sincerely hope this country will
never get to that point.  Of course we all would have been on J. Edgar
Hoover's lists, and maybe there are such lists now, but we don't worry
about it, and we don't have any political prisoners.  Or do we?

Somebody I read said that all of the Bill of Rights depends on free
speech.  I can't argue with that. That may be the case. I hope so.  If we
lose free speech we have lost our ideals.

bill w
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From avant at sollegro.com  Fri Mar 22 23:53:10 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2019 16:53:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] experiments on privacy
In-Reply-To: <373180811.9049311.1553213330047@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20190320114952.Horde.23I3eVmxmAQDdiYq9QUpVPX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <01ba01d4df56$31d57040$958050c0$@rainier66.com>
 <815012021.8424667.1553125370653@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190320182528.Horde.HsdDzaKXKJxLORpf78y0sd4@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <030d01d4df9e$e5b75090$b125f1b0$@rainier66.com>
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Message-ID: <20190322165310.Horde.39_qR8n45oysZZQbhlxS6R4@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Spike wrote:

>> ...I am no SCOTUS judge but I think that "papers" is the 18th  
>> century equivalent of "data". That is to say that if electronic  
>> media were available to the Founders, they would have included it  
>> in this amendment...Stuart LaForge
>
>
> All this worries me Stuart.?
>
> Around the time of the 9/11 attacks, the US put into effect a bunch  
> of laws that can under some circumstances, go around the 4th  
> amendment.? It really made us nervous at the time, for it represents  
> an expansion of government power.? Power corrupts.

Power is the rate at which one can perform work. Yes it might have a  
tendency to corrupt us, but that is built into our primate genes. On  
the other hand, what merits or accomplishments can weakness boast of?  
Can you imagine an entire race whose mere children have the ability to  
create or destroy planets? Symmetric power does not corrupt, no matter  
how great its magnitude, but unequal power does. Unequal power reminds  
us that we are monkeys instead of gods so we start acting accordingly.

> More recently, a dossier was created which was used as evidence to  
> justify a warrant to spy on American citizens, particularly those  
> connected to a particular candidate.? The candidate won anyway, but  
> now we are finding out the dossier itself may have been unverified,  
> and if unverified information was used to obtain a FISA warrant,  
> then that warrant was illegal as all hell.? Regardless of who it was  
> helping or hurting politically, it represents a gross abuse of the  
> FISA process, for which there have been no legal consequences.

I have a few thoughts about this:

1. The dossier came from an MI-6 operative. International espionage is  
a dirty business often relying on rumors and hearsay that can't be  
verified because the very nature of covert intelligence and state  
secrets. FISA is specifically designed to allow law enforcement to  
work together with intelligence agencies in order to combat threats  
against national security.

2. Although the details of the dossier have since been discredited,  
the gist of the dossier, that a certain person has financial ties with  
Russia that make him a Russian intelligence asset may very well be  
true as despite the fact that the dossier has been discredited, other  
corroborating evidence has since come to light including sworn  
testimony by subjects formerly close to the subject.

3. The subject under investigation, instead of cooperating with law  
enforcement to clear his good name through open dialogue and  
disclosure has instead used his own political influence to attack the  
law enforcement agency investigating him and obstruct their  
investigation by any means he can.

4. To have a sitting POTUS be a Russian intelligence asset is both a  
violation of the foreign emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution  
and also a credible threat to national security.

5. At no time was the subject of the investigation subjected to any of  
the more notorious excesses of law enforcement and the investigation  
of such a serious matter has been conducted with decorum and due  
process.

Also, contrary to your worries, there has been consequences to FISA  
warrant. Namely, that the FBI director who signed off on it has since  
been fired. You think he should do jail time too or something?

> If there are no legal consequences for hiring a third party to  
> create evidence against one's political adversaries, it will bte  
> done again.? And again.? Power corrupts.

Believing the half-truths of a spy in Her Majesty's Secret Service is  
hardly "creating evidence". It is, at worst, poor judgement. And as  
more evidence comes to light, it may not even be that.

> This would effectively repeal the 4th amendment.? If any part of the  
> Bill of Rights is repealed or by any means defeated, Americans have  
> no rights.

By jungle law, a well-armed organism has precisely those rights it  
believes itself to have. Americans are only exceptional in that we  
have codified a universal truth into the highest law of the land. The  
2nd Amendment is less a gift from the Founders than it is the explicit  
statement of an implicit law of nature. As long as the 2nd Amendment  
stands, I will not worry for the U.S. republic. For comparison, the  
Roman republic lasted about 500 years, weathered nine separate civil  
wars, and did not fall until the 10th civil war, won by Julius Caesar.  
We are less than half that age and have only fought one civil war so  
as long as we remain vigilant, we shall not falter.

Stuart LaForge












From aleksei at iki.fi  Sat Mar 23 08:18:15 2019
From: aleksei at iki.fi (Aleksei Riikonen)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 10:18:15 +0200
Subject: [ExI] When small societies reach c.1 million - religion appears
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhUfai42ha6_pUiM8EvPgFJUd2iVcxBe0u2NUQTZrfPvg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhUfai42ha6_pUiM8EvPgFJUd2iVcxBe0u2NUQTZrfPvg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAF=HMED_WE76dOc=C2q=BfwNGCGyzDhKoso7CsUMVOB8F91mvg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 21, 2019 at 2:13 PM BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> To me that seems to say that when humans feel things are getting out
> of control, they need to feel that 'somebody or something' is still
> controlling things.

No, it's simply that religion is the only way to prevent very many
normal humans from turning into selfish bastards in societies that are
big enough that being a selfish bastard is a winning strategy.

(Some, of course, realize that the religion the leaders are pushing is
bullshit designed to keep people under control, and then turn into
selfish bastards anyway. Which may create evolutionary pressure to
keep humans stupid enough that their society doesn't become
dysfunctional and weak because of too many selfish bastards.)

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

From sparge at gmail.com  Sat Mar 23 13:18:54 2019
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 09:18:54 -0400
Subject: [ExI] privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZ=kd7OvVWYH9tcvSXGHgt65WkJgTeEtKLeNZHnEs-6Hg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ=kd7OvVWYH9tcvSXGHgt65WkJgTeEtKLeNZHnEs-6Hg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2e6-FfE0ygFCofyosJ5PGTTMPXr5ePanhu-FJQos+Xnag@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 1:25 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I understand that I will get ads on Google, on web sites, on my computer
> and in email, though I did not give my email address to Aquasana.  What I
> don't get is how the newspaper got the info that I was on Amazon and the
> Aquasana web site.  They have not responded to my inquiry, nor has
> Aquasana.  Aquasana will get punished if they don't respond by my buying
> another product and letting them know that.
>

If you Googled "aquasana", then the newspaper could have advertised through
Google. Aquasana pays Google to promote their brand and Google pays the
newspaper to display the ad. If you shopped for Aquasana on Amazon, then
the newspaper is probably running ads for Amazon. If you neither Googled it
nor shopped for it on Amazon, then Aquasana probably made arrangements with
another marketer. If you use Facebook on your phone they probably know
everything you've ever done on it.

BTW, if this kind of targeted marketing bothers you or you just don't want
Google to know that much about you, try switching your default search
engine to DuckDuckGo. I find that it works very well.

-Dave
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Mar 23 13:50:24 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 08:50:24 -0500
Subject: [ExI] privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2e6-FfE0ygFCofyosJ5PGTTMPXr5ePanhu-FJQos+Xnag@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ=kd7OvVWYH9tcvSXGHgt65WkJgTeEtKLeNZHnEs-6Hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2e6-FfE0ygFCofyosJ5PGTTMPXr5ePanhu-FJQos+Xnag@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaWRL6rRX8T3L=vU8mS-GUwGNiX71FJ3qOqyor60wL9Lw@mail.gmail.com>

dave sill wrote:  BTW, if this kind of targeted marketing bothers you or
you just don't want Google to know that much about you, try switching your
default search engine to DuckDuckGo. I find that it works very well.

Good. Thanks. Would it help to use such things as Anonymizer?  Will that
cut out the ads?  bill w

On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 8:24 AM Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 1:25 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I understand that I will get ads on Google, on web sites, on my computer
>> and in email, though I did not give my email address to Aquasana.  What I
>> don't get is how the newspaper got the info that I was on Amazon and the
>> Aquasana web site.  They have not responded to my inquiry, nor has
>> Aquasana.  Aquasana will get punished if they don't respond by my buying
>> another product and letting them know that.
>>
>
> If you Googled "aquasana", then the newspaper could have advertised
> through Google. Aquasana pays Google to promote their brand and Google pays
> the newspaper to display the ad. If you shopped for Aquasana on Amazon,
> then the newspaper is probably running ads for Amazon. If you neither
> Googled it nor shopped for it on Amazon, then Aquasana probably made
> arrangements with another marketer. If you use Facebook on your phone they
> probably know everything you've ever done on it.
>
> BTW, if this kind of targeted marketing bothers you or you just don't want
> Google to know that much about you, try switching your default search
> engine to DuckDuckGo. I find that it works very well.
>
> -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 sparge at gmail.com  Sat Mar 23 14:28:17 2019
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 10:28:17 -0400
Subject: [ExI] privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaWRL6rRX8T3L=vU8mS-GUwGNiX71FJ3qOqyor60wL9Lw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ=kd7OvVWYH9tcvSXGHgt65WkJgTeEtKLeNZHnEs-6Hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2e6-FfE0ygFCofyosJ5PGTTMPXr5ePanhu-FJQos+Xnag@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaWRL6rRX8T3L=vU8mS-GUwGNiX71FJ3qOqyor60wL9Lw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2cyFbBTZuuqPVGDkHp-LvF85eXPaififk=fOjveHdd+SA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 9:55 AM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Good. Thanks. Would it help to use such things as Anonymizer?  Will that
> cut out the ads?  bill w
>

Anonymizer looks like a special-purpose VPN targeted to businesses or
hackers who want hit web servers from a wide range of IP addresses to avoid
detection. If you use a browser like Chrome, that's not going to provide
you any privacy because Chrome will still take cookies and provide your
identity.

I use a VPN to ensure my privacy over wireless networks and local ISPs but
it doesn't help hide my identity from web sites.

-Dave
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Mar 23 15:56:41 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 15:56:41 +0000
Subject: [ExI] privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2cyFbBTZuuqPVGDkHp-LvF85eXPaififk=fOjveHdd+SA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ=kd7OvVWYH9tcvSXGHgt65WkJgTeEtKLeNZHnEs-6Hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2e6-FfE0ygFCofyosJ5PGTTMPXr5ePanhu-FJQos+Xnag@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaWRL6rRX8T3L=vU8mS-GUwGNiX71FJ3qOqyor60wL9Lw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2cyFbBTZuuqPVGDkHp-LvF85eXPaififk=fOjveHdd+SA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhdKoYujCB6GfZp7LW3hkQSy6ikhpdeobGZygCRXASyew@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, 23 Mar 2019 at 14:34, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 9:55 AM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Good. Thanks. Would it help to use such things as Anonymizer?  Will that cut out the ads?  bill w
>
>
> Anonymizer looks like a special-purpose VPN targeted to businesses or hackers who want hit web servers from a wide range of IP addresses to avoid detection. If you use a browser like Chrome, that's not going to provide you any privacy because Chrome will still take cookies and provide your identity.
>
> I use a VPN to ensure my privacy over wireless networks and local ISPs but it doesn't help hide my identity from web sites.
>


As well as using the DuckDuckGo search engine you can install their
browser privacy extension - 'DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials'
For Chrome - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/duckduckgo-privacy-essent/bkdgflcldnnnapblkhphbgpggdiikppg
Also available for most other browsers. It should stop most advert tracking.

DuckDuckGo also has tutorials about privacy and tracking.
Device Privacy Tips: https://spreadprivacy.com/tag/device-privacy-tips/
More Privacy Education: https://spreadprivacy.com/tag/privacy-newsletter/


BillK


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Mar 23 16:39:00 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 11:39:00 -0500
Subject: [ExI] privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhdKoYujCB6GfZp7LW3hkQSy6ikhpdeobGZygCRXASyew@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ=kd7OvVWYH9tcvSXGHgt65WkJgTeEtKLeNZHnEs-6Hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2e6-FfE0ygFCofyosJ5PGTTMPXr5ePanhu-FJQos+Xnag@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaWRL6rRX8T3L=vU8mS-GUwGNiX71FJ3qOqyor60wL9Lw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2cyFbBTZuuqPVGDkHp-LvF85eXPaififk=fOjveHdd+SA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armhdKoYujCB6GfZp7LW3hkQSy6ikhpdeobGZygCRXASyew@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEY8wgC=3xBdsAW0KWoLD9CokkAQnCkGaa03hEhJC31jnQ@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks - you guys are great.  Have installed duckduckgo.

bill w

On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 11:01 AM BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 23 Mar 2019 at 14:34, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 9:55 AM William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Good. Thanks. Would it help to use such things as Anonymizer?  Will
> that cut out the ads?  bill w
> >
> >
> > Anonymizer looks like a special-purpose VPN targeted to businesses or
> hackers who want hit web servers from a wide range of IP addresses to avoid
> detection. If you use a browser like Chrome, that's not going to provide
> you any privacy because Chrome will still take cookies and provide your
> identity.
> >
> > I use a VPN to ensure my privacy over wireless networks and local ISPs
> but it doesn't help hide my identity from web sites.
> >
>
>
> As well as using the DuckDuckGo search engine you can install their
> browser privacy extension - 'DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials'
> For Chrome -
> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/duckduckgo-privacy-essent/bkdgflcldnnnapblkhphbgpggdiikppg
> Also available for most other browsers. It should stop most advert
> tracking.
>
> DuckDuckGo also has tutorials about privacy and tracking.
> Device Privacy Tips: https://spreadprivacy.com/tag/device-privacy-tips/
> More Privacy Education: https://spreadprivacy.com/tag/privacy-newsletter/
>
>
> BillK
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar 23 17:26:42 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 10:26:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] privacy
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2e6-FfE0ygFCofyosJ5PGTTMPXr5ePanhu-FJQos+Xnag@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbVdAhUVg6CKYRjOnmjKfKY7dw5a_TzAU-e85pUTV7PWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <008001d4df34$f97e3b80$ec7ab280$@rainier66.com>
 <CAO+xQEZ=kd7OvVWYH9tcvSXGHgt65WkJgTeEtKLeNZHnEs-6Hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2e6-FfE0ygFCofyosJ5PGTTMPXr5ePanhu-FJQos+Xnag@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003c01d4e19d$95e9ce70$c1bd6b50$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dave Sill



 

 

>?BTW, if this kind of targeted marketing bothers you or you just don't want Google to know that much about you, try switching your default search engine to DuckDuckGo. I find that it works very well.  -Dave

 

 

Ja!  I have been a (duck)^2go fan since I started using it over a year ago.

 

spike

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Mar 24 02:00:28 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 22:00:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] couple of science books
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZD0UHGE3ZUd5iOa+0-wWejBUFsxdKx7HZbUZrDuW7GMQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZD0UHGE3ZUd5iOa+0-wWejBUFsxdKx7HZbUZrDuW7GMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1WU8oVt_QE+-xX8Jfyjc+TpoV+mmSJi4oy2XkqtyNXRQ@mail.gmail.com>

I just finished "Stuff matters" and enjoyed it, thanks for the
recommendation it was a good one.

John K Clark

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 8:17 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> For the layman (perhaps that should stay the same - if I write 'for the
> layman or laywoman' it might cause comment).
>
> Stuff Matter - material science
> Liquid Rules - how liquids act
>
> Both by Miodownik - very easy to read; very enjoyable, esp. the first one,
> about which I knew nothing
>
> 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 Mar 24 14:18:37 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2019 09:18:37 -0500
Subject: [ExI] couple of science books
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1WU8oVt_QE+-xX8Jfyjc+TpoV+mmSJi4oy2XkqtyNXRQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZD0UHGE3ZUd5iOa+0-wWejBUFsxdKx7HZbUZrDuW7GMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1WU8oVt_QE+-xX8Jfyjc+TpoV+mmSJi4oy2XkqtyNXRQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa0N4VQnp3GrNJ=Nrsr3mEYhhK9sZAsmPdfH7wBdMF7rw@mail.gmail.com>

Johh - Maybe we can start a trend:  I have thanked many over several years,
but yours is the first thanks I've seen other than mine.  I hate to see
ordinary politeness disappear as something quaint but unnecessary.  bill w

On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 9:05 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> I just finished "Stuff matters" and enjoyed it, thanks for the
> recommendation it was a good one.
>
> John K Clark
>
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 8:17 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> For the layman (perhaps that should stay the same - if I write 'for the
>> layman or laywoman' it might cause comment).
>>
>> Stuff Matter - material science
>> Liquid Rules - how liquids act
>>
>> Both by Miodownik - very easy to read; very enjoyable, esp. the first
>> one, about which I knew nothing
>>
>> 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 foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 24 17:17:14 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2019 12:17:14 -0500
Subject: [ExI] microbes again
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbD0B69vDFWNGSsdh9d0aFDwXunSyKtLqkt8ymGjX0gHQ@mail.gmail.com>

Reading 10% Human - Collen

I was just thinking of Ockham's razor, preferring the simplest explanation
if you know very little to begin with.

If  person has a mental health problem, is it simpler to assume a
biological/genetic explanation, or an environmental/lifestyle/emotional
explanation?  I have not figured that out.  How would you answer this?

But in this book, personality changes of a dramatic sort are obtained in
studies of the transfer of gut microbes from one strain of mice to
another.  Giving antibiotics to autistic children immediately results in
dramatic behavior changes (which don't last - microbes mutating?).
Toxoplasma infection changes the behavior of people.

So now I think we have to add a third category to the biological/genetic,
environmental/emotional explanation:  microbial infection or imbalance.

Of course an initial problem is working with people as subjects.  We can
hardly inject microbes into people to see what happens.

But the results in this book are not to be denied:  microbes help run our
lives,and sometimes it sends us off the rails to behavior that resembles
schizophrenia, obsessive/compulsive problems, and others.

bill w
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From avant at sollegro.com  Sun Mar 24 18:11:27 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2019 11:11:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Making brains transparent for HD brain imaging
Message-ID: <20190324111127.Horde.As_9GjtpoqLLKAwaa0QAVxL@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


I just happened upon this Nature article from 2013 that blew me away  
and certainly has implications for cryonics and uploading. The highly  
recommended video shows off an incredible new brain imaging technique  
called CLARITY that uses detergents and a hydrogel to make entire  
brains transparent to light microscopes, allowing unprecedentedly  
detailed connectome mappings:

https://www.nature.com/news/see-through-brains-clarify-connections-1.12768

--------------------------------------------------------------
A chemical treatment that turns whole organs transparent offers a big  
boost to the field of ?connectomics? ? the push to map the brain?s  
fiendishly complicated wiring. Scientists could use the technique to  
view large networks of neurons with unprecedented ease and accuracy.  
The technology also opens up new research avenues for old brains that  
were saved from patients and healthy donors.

?This is probably one of the most important advances for doing  
neuroanatomy in decades,? says Thomas Insel, director of the US  
National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, which  
funded part of the work. Existing technology allows scientists to see  
neurons and their connections in microscopic detail ? but only across  
tiny slivers of tissue. Researchers must reconstruct three-dimensional  
data from images of these thin slices. Aligning hundreds or even  
thousands of these snapshots to map long-range projections of nerve  
cells is laborious and error-prone, rendering fine-grain analysis of  
whole brains practically impossible.

Related stories
Big Neuroscience: Billions and Billions (Maybe) to Unravel Mysteries  
of the Brain
Mapping brain networks: Fish-bowl neuroscience
Brain nerves line up neatly
More related stories

The new method instead allows researchers to see directly into  
optically transparent whole brains or thick blocks of brain tissue.  
Called CLARITY, it was devised by Karl Deisseroth and his team at  
Stanford University in California. ?You can get right down to the fine  
structure of the system while not losing the big picture,? says  
Deisseroth, who adds that his group is in the process of rendering an  
entire human brain transparent.

The technique, published online in Nature on 10 April, turns the brain  
transparent using the detergent SDS, which strips away lipids that  
normally block the passage of light  (K. Chung et al. Nature  
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12107; 2013). Other groups have tried  
to clarify brains in the past, but many lipid-extraction techniques  
dissolve proteins and thus make it harder to identify different types  
of neurons. Deisseroth?s group solved this problem by first infusing  
the brain with acryl?amide, which binds proteins, nucleic acids and  
other biomolecules. When the acrylamide is heated, it polymerizes and  
forms a tissue-wide mesh that secures the molecules. The resulting  
brain?hydrogel hybrid showed only 8% protein loss after lipid  
extraction, compared to 41% with existing methods.

Applying CLARITY to whole mouse brains, the researchers viewed  
fluorescently labelled neurons in areas ranging from outer layers of  
the cortex to deep structures such as the thalamus. They also traced  
individual nerve fibres through 0.5-millimetre-thick slabs of  
formalin-preserved autopsied human brain ? orders of magnitude thicker  
than slices currently imaged.


Kwanghun Chung & Karl Deisseroth, HHMI/Stanford Univ.

Neurons in an intact mouse hippocampus visualized using CLARITY and  
fluorescent labelling.

Expand
?The work is spectacular. The results are unlike anything else in the  
field,? says Van Wedeen, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts General  
Hospital in Boston and a lead investigator on the US National  
Institutes of Health?s Human Connectome Project (HCP), which aims to  
chart the brain?s neuronal communication networks. The new technique,  
he says, could reveal important cellular details that would complement  
data on large-scale neuronal pathways that he and his colleagues are  
mapping in the HCP?s 1,200 healthy participants using magnetic  
resonance imaging.

Francine Benes, director of the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center  
at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, says that more tests are  
needed to assess whether the lipid-clearing treatment alters or  
damages the fundamental structure of brain tissue. But she and others  
predict that CLARITY will pave the way for studies on healthy brain  
wiring, and on brain disorders and ageing.

Researchers could, for example, compare circuitry in banked tissue  
from people with neurological diseases and from controls whose brains  
were healthy. Such studies in living people are impossible, because  
most neuron-tracing methods require genetic engineering or injection  
of dye in living animals. Scientists might also revisit the many  
specimens in repositories that have been difficult to analyse because  
human brains are so large.

The hydrogel?tissue hybrid formed by CLARITY ? stiffer and more  
chemically stable than untreated tissue ? might also turn delicate and  
rare disease specimens into re?usable resources, Deisseroth says. One  
could, in effect, create a library of brains that different  
researchers check out, study and then return.
----------------------------------------------

This was way back in 2013. These days they are making whole mice  
transparent. How did I (we?) miss this?

Stuart LaForge






From danust2012 at gmail.com  Mon Mar 25 14:43:02 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 07:43:02 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Eight Things You Need to Know About Sex, Gender, Brains,
 and Behavior
Message-ID: <A22D4665-1113-43A6-A2E4-A1BFF9FB8CD9@gmail.com>

http://sfonline.barnard.edu/neurogenderings/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-sex-gender-brains-and-behavior-a-guide-for-academics-journalists-parents-gender-diversity-advocates-social-justice-warriors-tweeters-facebookers-and-ever/

Basically ways to overcome the default presumption of binary gender. I also recommend Cordelia Fine?s books.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar 25 15:59:29 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 08:59:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
Message-ID: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>

 

 

Question please for What3Words gurus.  I see you can enter your address and
have it give you 3 words that identifies your house:

 

https://what3words.com/

 

Cool, so I see that it divides the land into 3 meter x 3 meter squares and
assigns every square 3 words, which is easier to remember than GPS
coordinates.  The house where I grew up is forgets.gladness.pirate, but we
didn't have a lawn Chevy.  We couldn't afford such luxuries as a lawn Chevy.
If we had one of those, we would have taken it apart and sold the pieces.

 

OK my question is this: since this is on a 3x3 grid, a typical house (Ok
outside of Bay Area low cost housing units) have more than one square.
Suppose I enter my address and my three words are egregious.old.fart.  

 

Imagine that I don't  like those particular three words, memorable as they
are.

 

I see there are several other 3x3 squares which would identify my house.
Hipsters, how do I find out the three words of the other squares?

 

spike

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From sparge at gmail.com  Mon Mar 25 16:30:26 2019
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 12:30:26 -0400
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>

That's cool. Never heard of it. If you're using the phone app you can drag
the map around and it'll show you the words for each square.

-Dave

On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 12:04 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> Question please for What3Words gurus.  I see you can enter your address
> and have it give you 3 words that identifies your house:
>
>
>
> https://what3words.com/
>
>
>
> Cool, so I see that it divides the land into 3 meter x 3 meter squares and
> assigns every square 3 words, which is easier to remember than GPS
> coordinates.  The house where I grew up is forgets.gladness.pirate, but we
> didn?t have a lawn Chevy.  We couldn?t afford such luxuries as a lawn
> Chevy.  If we had one of those, we would have taken it apart and sold the
> pieces.
>
>
>
> OK my question is this: since this is on a 3x3 grid, a typical house (Ok
> outside of Bay Area low cost housing units) have more than one square.
> Suppose I enter my address and my three words are egregious.old.fart.
>
>
>
> Imagine that I don?t  like those particular three words, memorable as they
> are.
>
>
>
> I see there are several other 3x3 squares which would identify my house.
> Hipsters, how do I find out the three words of the other squares?
>
>
>
> 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 danust2012 at gmail.com  Mon Mar 25 17:59:16 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 10:59:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] elite college bribery scandal
In-Reply-To: <20190319155936.Horde.Ryc2TaT1h5QbpDrTq4VP1yD@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <020401d4daae$32660b20$97322160$@rainier66.com>
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> On Mar 19, 2019, at 3:59 PM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> Quoting Dan Ust:
> 
>> I believe Caplan is saying the degree from a top school doesn?t signal wealth and privilege. (Why would it? It?s obvious that some people can buy their way into a top school, but showing off one?s portfolio would easily display wealth and one can display privilege by having a Park Avenue address.
>> Instead, his claim is that it signals you?ll be a good worker ? better than the graduate of a lesser school (because it?s harder to get into a top school) and better than the person who didn?t graduate or didn?t go at all. And he thinks would be employers are looking for smart and reliable workers ? not just smart. If it were the latter, then they could simply use IQ or even SAT scores as much as degrees.
> 
> 
> Well since I have not read Caplan's book and am largely going off of your description of it, I will accept your interpretation of what he meant by "signalling". However in biology, signalling generally means an expensive display meant to attract a mate like a peacock's tail or a ferrari so I apologize for the confusion.

Well, Caplan is using a similar concept. The degree signal is an expensive display ? a Harvard degree ain?t cheap in terms of resources (time and effort out in to obtaining one). The signal here isn?t about the someone wealth has but about their ability to do the job ? be smart, hardworking, and follow orders. This isn?t all that different than the peacock?s display, which seems to be signaling the peahen that he?s a good mate choice.  

> That being said, why shouldn't employers hire people on the basis of test scores? Maybe not IQ or SAT but something germane to the employer's industry. Is it any less impressive that some person passed a state bar exam by studying on his own rather than by going to a fancy law school? Especially since earning a degree does not necessarily imply that any of the knowledge was retained beyond graduation.

Earning a degree signals a strong willingness to conform and follow orders. That?s valued by employers who don?t want someone who smart but either lazy (won?t do the work at all) or such a free spirit (won?t follow the plan or orders). I general, according to Caplan, employers want smarts and creativity but without bounds. For instance, they want someone to come up with a new product, but not to question the whole business.

Also, it?s far harder to give a false signal with a degree. A degree is an extensive signal. One can still cheat and lie, but it?s far easier to detect cheaters and liars with degrees over with test scores.

>> I?m not sure about Bill W.?s point about using college as networking. I?d like to see some data on that rather than the homespun wisdom.
> 
> Here is some recent data:
> https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/22/study-finds-graduates-most-selective-colleges-enjoy-earnings-payoff
> 
> "There are many fine colleges below the top Ivies and privates, and many of those are very hard to get into, but the graduates of the most selective colleges, like the Ivies and other top 20 colleges, do get considerably better-paying jobs. A very smart, hardworking student who gets into a college below the very top level of selectivity does not earn the same as one who gets into one of the most selective colleges," he said. "This explains, perhaps, why there is such an intense or frantic competition to get into those very top-ranked colleges. It has substantial implications for future earnings."

But what?s being signaled here? That they?re rubbing shoulders and making connections or that it?s hard to get into elite schools? I mean do you hire the person who gets into Harvard because of her Facebook friends are going to include other Harvard students or because they got into and got a degree from Harvard? Note that they?re talking about graduates ? not simply attendees.

>> Here if the networking thesis is true, I?d expect the guy who want to Harvard but dropped after after his third year (didn?t get the degree) to have almost as much of a network ? to have met and forged contacts with almost as many people as the graduate. Yet the diploma-holder seems definitely to do better in the job market than the guy who spent almost as time there but didn?t get the diploma.
> 
> Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk all dropped out of Ivy League schools and so could be considered evidence (albeit anecdotal rather than statistical) that getting accepted to and then dropping out of an Ivy League school is a better strategy than completing a degree at a public university.

These are outliers. The average college dropout tends to not do well and not merely percentage-wise based on time attended. (Else we?d see, say, two years at Harvard making twice as much as one year, but half as much as four years.) Also, in general, would you hire someone who had a golden opportunity but dropped out? Yeah, you might be turning down a Bill Gates, but you might also be turning down someone who isn?t going to do the work. (And the folks you?re mentioning are better entrepreneurs than employees.)

By the way, Caplan isn?t making a case for degrees. Far from it. He?s saying it?s socially wasteful even if it?s individually beneficial: that degree signaling leads to degree inflation and society waste far too much resources on education (most of which doesn?t improve productivity, skills, civic mindedness, or well being). But for individuals it makes much sense: as a degree-chaser, you increase your chances of having more wealth, high social status, and a better overall life, but this is mostly by playing a zero sum game. (In other words, overall wealth and well being are not improved; just yours.)

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar 25 19:30:16 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 12:30:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
 <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005701d4e341$2ddacb40$899061c0$@rainier66.com>

 

From: Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: [ExI] what3words hipsters

 

>?That's cool. Never heard of it. If you're using the phone app you can drag the map around and it'll show you the words for each square.

 

-Dave

 

 

OK cool, I got that working, thanks Dave.  

 

I found BillK?s house.  His address words: manliness.obscuring.mouth.

 

No kidding, that?s really it.  Putting aside the suggestiveness of those particular words, I want to know where the heck BillK keeps that foxy Mary Crowley.  Good chance she is in a square called gorgeous.possibly.evil or something like that.

 

Here?s fun game: find your house, list all the three word addresses that are on top of your actual home or property.  Some of them are great fun.  No you don?t need to post them here, suggest you don?t.

 

Next: think of the games and stuff we can do with this: a puzzle of some sort that would give the words if solved correctly, like a grown-up version of geocaching, a reward of some kind at the solution site, such as 20 bucks or a plate of cookies or an eager nymphomaniac, that kinda thing.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Mar 25 20:10:21 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 20:10:21 +0000
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <005701d4e341$2ddacb40$899061c0$@rainier66.com>
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Message-ID: <CAL_armiSPGW+555mV8CgyppiPGVmC8s5WmjmwHwS691DF+t9HA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 at 19:36, <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> I found BillK?s house.  His address words: manliness.obscuring.mouth.
>
> No kidding, that?s really it.  Putting aside the suggestiveness of those particular words, I want to know where the heck BillK keeps that foxy Mary Crowley.  Good chance she is in a square called gorgeous.possibly.evil or something like that.
>
>

?????  Different BillK ??????  That's nowhere near me in London. It's
out in the countryside, near Andover, about 65 miles from London.
And who's Mary Crowley?????

BillK


From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Mar 25 20:28:24 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 20:28:24 +0000
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiSPGW+555mV8CgyppiPGVmC8s5WmjmwHwS691DF+t9HA@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAL_armhShGarWfU3VL+zZWfv=G4im_AcUWo5U=VedkSZ19JzxA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 at 20:10, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:>
> On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 at 19:36, <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> >
> > I found BillK?s house.  His address words: manliness.obscuring.mouth.
> >
> > No kidding, that?s really it.  Putting aside the suggestiveness of those particular words, I want to know where the heck BillK keeps that foxy Mary Crowley.  Good chance she is in a square called gorgeous.possibly.evil or something like that.
> >
> >
>
> ?????  Different BillK ??????  That's nowhere near me in London. It's
> out in the countryside, near Andover, about 65 miles from London.
> And who's Mary Crowley?????
>


Oh, I get it now.  You looked at my country cottage.
And you meant Mary Crawley - Not my responsibility I'm afraid.

BillK


From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar 25 20:44:14 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 13:44:14 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiSPGW+555mV8CgyppiPGVmC8s5WmjmwHwS691DF+t9HA@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAL_armiSPGW+555mV8CgyppiPGVmC8s5WmjmwHwS691DF+t9HA@mail.gmail.com>
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-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2019 1:10 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] what3words hipsters

On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 at 19:36, <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> I found BillK?s house.  His address words: manliness.obscuring.mouth.
>
> No kidding, that?s really it.  Putting aside the suggestiveness of those particular words, I want to know where the heck BillK keeps that foxy Mary Crowley.  Good chance she is in a square called gorgeous.possibly.evil or something like that.
>
>

?????  Different BillK ??????  That's nowhere near me in London. It's out in the countryside, near Andover, about 65 miles from London.
And who's Mary Crowley?????

BillK

_______________________________________________


Who is Mary Crowley?  My mistake, it's spelled Mary Crawley:

https://www.google.com/search?q=mary+crawley+downton&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=fUBv5fAXvU9e_M%253A%252Cv6j9-uq_AamoRM%252C%252Fm%252F0h4_fbl&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kS57zV5MyqLJwwB7jnb83pVj-oPxg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwibxvy8k57hAhWEsJ4KHQg9D80Q_B0wHXoECAsQBg#imgrc=fUBv5fAXvU9e_M:

BillK, we already know you British lads live well.  We see it on our TVs over here.  I figure you are living in London for business, visiting Mary Crawley when time allows in your country cottage out there in Andover.

spike




From spike at rainier66.com  Mon Mar 25 20:48:56 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 13:48:56 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhShGarWfU3VL+zZWfv=G4im_AcUWo5U=VedkSZ19JzxA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
 <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>
 <005701d4e341$2ddacb40$899061c0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAL_armiSPGW+555mV8CgyppiPGVmC8s5WmjmwHwS691DF+t9HA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <00e601d4e34c$2a8fe500$7fafaf00$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK
>


Oh, I get it now.  You looked at my country cottage.
And you meant Mary Crawley - Not my responsibility I'm afraid.

BillK

_______________________________________________


Ooops I should read everything before I post anything.

Ja I meant Mary Crawley.  She's my second favorite British woman.  My favorite is Mary's grandmother the dowager countess.  It isn't just because of her seasoned beauty, but her acidic wit: 

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=Yz2ZXP6dKJD0-gSZzoDwAw&q=dowager+countess+quotes&oq=dowager+countess&gs_l=img.1.1.0l10.2304.4831..8651...0.0..0.73.932.16......0....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i67.Jl5qYIX4PV8

The DowCouCraw makes life worth living.

spike



From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 26 05:27:48 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 22:27:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <005701d4e341$2ddacb40$899061c0$@rainier66.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
 <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>
 <005701d4e341$2ddacb40$899061c0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <009101d4e394$a6927cb0$f3b77610$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Subject: RE: [ExI] what3words hipsters

 

 

From: Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com <mailto:sparge at gmail.com> > 
Subject: Re: [ExI] what3words hipsters

 

>>?That's cool. Never heard of it. If you're using the phone app you can drag the map around and it'll show you the words for each square.

 

-Dave

 

 

>?OK cool, I got that working, thanks Dave.  

 

>?I found BillK?s house.  His address words: manliness.obscuring.mouth?spike

 

 

This was all great fun until a most disturbing thought occurred to me.  

 

A house covers several of these 3x3 meter squares, but? a grave would not.  Many and perhaps most graves would have only one word triplet.  You have several choices on what three words you can use to identify your house (BillK?s country cottage has 280) but? you might find yourself buried in manliness.fills.mouth or some revolting thing and you have no way to change it once your dead ass is down there.  

 

This could cause cemeteries to have premium sites, such as manliness.impresses.bystanders and some that no one wants such as? well plenty of them.  You don?t need my overly-fertile imagination.

 

I always tend to look on the bright side.  This could encourage more proles to go in for cryonics!  They wouldn?t want to risk being forever interred in rectum.disgorging.commentary for instance.

 

Oh dear, I just searched on Alcor and it came back with the most unfortunate triplet wounds.client.face, damn.

 

Oh wait, all is not lost.  Right next to it is pavement.graphic.hints, which doesn?t sound like such a bad place, and that flipping.sulky.conquest has a hint of sexiness, along with influencing.fortunate.vocals, I like it.

 

Hey I have an idea: let?s find out who runs What3Words, then quietly arrange to bribe them to change certain squares to a name of choice.  Then we act as brokers, take half, give graves a cool triplet.  When my time comes, freeze my head at maximum.personal.post (one of Alcor?s actual triplets) and rename wherever you bury the rest of me in spike.making.buttloads.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From bmd54321 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 26 06:47:36 2019
From: bmd54321 at gmail.com (Brian Manning Delaney)
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 07:47:36 +0100
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
 <CAM5aL2dZOk4o_z_Re3dBxSxAA7RSYu88+KPnx_N01z7nzJm2Cw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <b05d9c78-2402-236b-8155-afdd61a12756@gmail.com>

El 2019-03-25 a las 17:30, Dave Sill escribi?:
> That's cool. Never heard of it. If you're using the phone app you can 
> drag the map around and it'll show you the words for each square.


What fun!

By the way, I have no problem dragging the map around in Google Chrome 
(Windows 10).

If you don't like your three words, you can always switch languages.

Spike, forgets.gladness.pirate is a fine triplet, but if you didn't like 
it, cipreses.estrat?gicas.encharcada is cool as well.

Brian

From bmd54321 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 26 07:07:41 2019
From: bmd54321 at gmail.com (Brian M. Delaney)
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 08:07:41 +0100
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <dd2f5288-5ed0-27a4-a7bf-621aed64c89d@gmail.com>


P.S. I'm going to use this to get the clueless Lyft/Uber drivers to get 
to my actual location.

From spike at rainier66.com  Tue Mar 26 14:58:39 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 07:58:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <dd2f5288-5ed0-27a4-a7bf-621aed64c89d@gmail.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
 <dd2f5288-5ed0-27a4-a7bf-621aed64c89d@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00e401d4e3e4$65ca6a80$315f3f80$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Brian M. Delaney
Subject: Re: [ExI] what3words hipsters


P.S. I'm going to use this to get the clueless Lyft/Uber drivers to get to
my actual location.
_______________________________________________


Ja, but what if you are located at Gives.Blow.Jobs then within two minutes
Uber cars are lined up around the block?

This ain't gonna work, nevah gonna work.  You know the yahoos will identify
those places, and if they find them in a cemetery you will see them staked
off with that yellow caution tape and a sign: Don't plant anyone here.

It's trouble I tells ya!

But there is an upside to it all.  What games can we think of?

spike


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 26 22:21:35 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 17:21:35 -0500
Subject: [ExI] not impressed?
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZ20aeGHcvzN=prGEm1zD6c8vD0yVUZSwiF+R4yPMoFwg@mail.gmail.com>

How about this?  A group of scientists studying microbes can take a MRI of
your brain and tell you the microbial makeup of your gut bacteria.  The
bacteria influence the white and gray matter volume and density, and the
wiring of the reward center.

bill w
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From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 27 13:35:38 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 06:35:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <dd2f5288-5ed0-27a4-a7bf-621aed64c89d@gmail.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
 <dd2f5288-5ed0-27a4-a7bf-621aed64c89d@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001b01d4e4a1$f79b88a0$e6d299e0$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Brian M. Delaney
Subject: Re: [ExI] what3words hipsters


>...P.S. I'm going to use this to get the clueless Lyft/Uber drivers to get
to my actual location.
_______________________________________________



Walking yesterday, wondered how many words it would take to identify any 3x3
on the planet with three words.  I realized one does not even need a piece
of paper to do that estimation.

The planet's radius is about 6367 km (and everyone carries that number
around in their heads, ja?) so square that to one digit of precision gives
about 40 million and 4 pi is close enough to 12 so about 500 million square
km or about 5E14 square meters and a 3x3 square contains close enough to 10
square meters, so about 5E13 squares or lets say 50E12 squares, and the cube
root of that is about well, less than 4E4, ja?  With 40 thousand words would
be more than enough, and if we disallow duplications, that's 120 thousand,
still have a quarter of the English words left over, even including those
you really don't want to use for this purpose.

Being no grammar hipster, I have no idea if we have enough verbs to make the
second word a verb always, and even if we do, if that would be a good idea.
Perhaps not: I could think of a number of ways that could go wrong, even
before we get to the risk of being interred in a place whose
grammatically-correct sentence would be a most unfortunate final resting
place.

The whole exercise focuses attention on the special places on the globe,
such as latitude 0 longitude 0.  Where is it?  Out in the middle of the
South Atlantic Ocean, in that piece were South America was torn away a
billion years ago.  Doesn't that seem just wrong?  Couldn't they start the
numbering such that we could at least have a plaque there?  Failing that,
seems like we could name that square all.starts.here.

And what about the poles?  Shouldn't they get a special name?  Call them
so.cold.here. and shit.polar.bear. for instance.

OK then, so since we were on the topic of applications and games, it
occurred to me that a grid could be subdivided with two single digits.  Let
the southwest corner of a square be 00, then the first digit through 9
inclusive would be the number of, well, feet (what an ugly unit, but
annoyingly tangible) north and the second number feet west (in accordance
with latitude and longitude protocol) so the game might be to find the word
clues to get you to the treasure buried at spike.silly.idea.55, which is
right in the middle of an actual square near Northampton England.

While I was doing all this, I discovered that silly.idea.spike is easier for
me to get to: it's near Charlotte, NC.  I also discovered they allow
duplications.  spike.spike.spike is located near Annapolis MD, right near
the Naval Academy.  Cool!

I see they don't have the word "here" which is unfortunate but
understandable.  One might see how that would make the bidding wars for
cemetery locations even worse.  

As I play with this What3Words, I just keep getting a feeling of hope and
optimism, that the future of humanity is bright, that there are better ways
for our species to live and grow into an ever more marvelous, robust and
noble species, that there are cubic buttloads of money to be made here.

spike




From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 27 13:56:52 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 06:56:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
Message-ID: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>


This question has been front and center in my mind for most of my life:

https://earthsky.org/space/meti-workshop-in-paris-fermis-paradox-great-silen
ce

I am no closer to an answer now than I was in my misspent youth.

spike


From interzone at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 14:12:31 2019
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 10:12:31 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH_Kd51oYofn-CDXNNPOHFFKiwjwzawwz9BT--F=On55UQ@mail.gmail.com>

I fear the answer is that the probability of intelligent life evolving and
getting to the space exploration level more than once in overlapping time
frames is exceedingly low, which I hope is not the case.  I would love for
this hypothesis and the other pessimistic ones that explain the radio
silence to be proven wrong of course.

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 10:00 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
> This question has been front and center in my mind for most of my life:
>
>
> https://earthsky.org/space/meti-workshop-in-paris-fermis-paradox-great-silen
> ce
>
> I am no closer to an answer now than I was in my misspent youth.
>
> 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 danust2012 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 14:41:50 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 07:41:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <623F9531-BA6F-4786-A3D1-A00AA85B45FF@gmail.com>

On Mar 27, 2019, at 6:56 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> 
> This question has been front and center in my mind for most of my life:
> 
> https://earthsky.org/space/meti-workshop-in-paris-fermis-paradox-great-silen
> ce
> 
> I am no closer to an answer now than I was in my misspent youth.


It?s one of those perennial questions... By the way, I?ve always thought the Drake equation misleads people: one can have really accurate ranges for some of the variables but even having just one variable having a wide range means the solution range is wide and not useful.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 14:53:56 2019
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 10:53:56 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyGOQ4GBMgMHcr9m6xUnkmv1dU=Soa9XK+DhHQZfOPCmTw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 10:00 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
> This question has been front and center in my mind for most of my life:
>
>
> https://earthsky.org/space/meti-workshop-in-paris-fermis-paradox-great-silen
> ce
>
> I am no closer to an answer now than I was in my misspent youth.
>
> spike
>

This question is like asking why a girl hasn't texted back within a few
hours.
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 14:57:02 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 10:57:02 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 10:03 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
> This question has been front and center in my mind for most of my life:
>
>
> https://earthsky.org/space/meti-workshop-in-paris-fermis-paradox-great-silen
> ce
>
> > I am no closer to an answer now than I was in my misspent youth.
>

For the zoo hypothesis to be true ET would have to somehow circumvent the
Second Law Of Thermodynamics (where does the waste heat from ET's
civilization go and why can't we find it?) and they go to the trouble of
performing this superhuman majical task for the sole purpose of keeping ape
descendants on a small planet ignorant of their surroundings.  This all
seems somewhat unlikely to me.

 John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 27 15:07:46 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 08:07:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH_Kd51oYofn-CDXNNPOHFFKiwjwzawwz9BT--F=On55UQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJrqPH_Kd51oYofn-CDXNNPOHFFKiwjwzawwz9BT--F=On55UQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001a01d4e4ae$d6d34740$8479d5c0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio
Subject: Re: [ExI] fermi question alive and well

 

>?I fear the answer is that the probability of intelligent life evolving and getting to the space exploration level more than once in overlapping time frames is exceedingly low, which I hope is not the case.  I would love for this hypothesis and the other pessimistic ones that explain the radio silence to be proven wrong of course?

 

 

Perhaps so, but your comment gave me an idea.  Start with the pessimistic assumption that the intelligence span of humanity and any intelligent species is limited and short (perhaps a few hundred years of ability to send out signal beacons at 21 cm, detectable from far away.)

 

Your mission: design a completely autonomous system which would send out some easily-recognizable signal at 21 cm that would continue to do so for say tens of thousands of years without human intervention.  We can use Sagan?s idea from Contact, of bopping out the first few prime numbers in base 1. Sending out the signal a coupla times a day would be sufficient perhaps, or suggest a time interval.  Where would you put it?  Hasta be robust enough to survive the EMP humanity will likely pop ourselves with repeatedly in the reasonably foreseeable.

 

I am imagining something on the moon?s limb, inside a crater out of view of the Earth, collecting solar energy and transmitting with that when it is available for a coupla weeks a month.  What I don?t know is the long-term reliability of that kind of system and how much mass it would take.  But if we can do this, we can still signal We Are Here messages long after we aren?t anymore.

 

Reasoning: if we humans are asking Are We Alone, the other guy out there is asking the same question too.  This way we give that guy hope, even if he is (in reality) alone, it would convince him that he isn?t.  This way, he has reason to believe intelligence can survive itself long term, even if we didn?t.

 

Cool!

 

spike

 

 

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 10:00 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:


This question has been front and center in my mind for most of my life:

https://earthsky.org/space/meti-workshop-in-paris-fermis-paradox-great-silen
ce

I am no closer to an answer now than I was in my misspent youth.

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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 15:09:00 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 11:09:00 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH_Kd51oYofn-CDXNNPOHFFKiwjwzawwz9BT--F=On55UQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJrqPH_Kd51oYofn-CDXNNPOHFFKiwjwzawwz9BT--F=On55UQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1-h5myy3rv7GcDSjdQ+N+UAR9RNxU8VUqsJPnuue7QJw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 10:20 AM Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:

*> I fear the answer is that the probability of intelligent life evolving
> and getting to the space exploration level more than once in overlapping
> time frames is exceedingly low,*
>

I agree.


> > *which I hope is not the case.*
>

I don't agree. If we were to find a civilization at approximately our level
of technological development it would be strong evidence that such
civilizations are common but they never get any further; so we must be very
near to a catastrophic planet wide extinction event of some sort.  Although
not as clear cut I would not consider even the discovery of microbes on
Mars to be good news.

John K Clark






>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 27 15:15:42 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 08:15:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyGOQ4GBMgMHcr9m6xUnkmv1dU=Soa9XK+DhHQZfOPCmTw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAKrqSyGOQ4GBMgMHcr9m6xUnkmv1dU=Soa9XK+DhHQZfOPCmTw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003001d4e4af$f1d62520$d5826f60$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] fermi question alive and well

 

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 10:00 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:


This question has been front and center in my mind for most of my life:

https://earthsky.org/space/meti-workshop-in-paris-fermis-paradox-great-silen
ce

I am no closer to an answer now than I was in my misspent youth.

spike

 

>?This question is like asking why a girl hasn't texted back within a few hours.

 

 

On the contrary, that one is easy Will: I?m a geek, she isn?t.

 

I keep entertaining the notion that there are entire alien species consisting of geeks.

 

spike

 

 

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From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 15:44:58 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 15:44:58 +0000
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJrqPH_Kd51oYofn-CDXNNPOHFFKiwjwzawwz9BT--F=On55UQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJrqPH_Kd51oYofn-CDXNNPOHFFKiwjwzawwz9BT--F=On55UQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armi4AXCJgjX_Uv6AW1_bNkGooV68oGzbwwR42ctVjuo59g@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, 27 Mar 2019 at 14:20, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I fear the answer is that the probability of intelligent life evolving and getting to the space exploration level more than once in overlapping time frames is exceedingly low, which I hope is not the case.  I would love for this hypothesis and the other pessimistic ones that explain the radio silence to be proven wrong of course.
>
> On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 10:00 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> This question has been front and center in my mind for most of my life:
>> https://earthsky.org/space/meti-workshop-in-paris-fermis-paradox-great-silence
>>
>> I am no closer to an answer now than I was in my misspent youth.
>>

'overlapping time frames' is a big snag, I agree.
The universe is really, really big and distance = time delay - even at
light speed.
Those at the same level as us are probably too far away and at the
same tech level for too short a period of time.
Even if we do detect signals they will be from the aliens distant past.

And obviously more advanced aliens don't get to do big tech or spam
the galaxy - because we would see the results.

Maybe the drive towards intelligence means that civilisations gain
great power and either self-destruct or are forced into a quiet,
strictly controlled system in order to avoid destruction. It probably
all happens in the blink of an eye (in age of the universe terms).


BillK


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 20:29:26 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 16:29:26 -0400
Subject: [ExI] LIGO
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0BaODvsE8P57NbSkvM736eY+ogt1Fh05bGtwi1Cuf8ig@mail.gmail.com>

Unless there is some last second glitch the 2 LIGO detectors in the USA and
the Virgo detector in Italy will go back online on Monday. The 2 LIGO
detectors will be about 40% more sensitive now after the upgrade and the
slightly smaller Virgo detector about 50% better. And because their ability
to detect waves only decreases lineally with distance not as distance
squared together they will be able to see gravitational events in about 3
times the previous volume. They should run for a year before being shut
down for yet another upgrade.

John K Clark
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From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 27 20:44:48 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 13:44:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] LIGO
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0BaODvsE8P57NbSkvM736eY+ogt1Fh05bGtwi1Cuf8ig@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv0BaODvsE8P57NbSkvM736eY+ogt1Fh05bGtwi1Cuf8ig@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003401d4e4dd$eb838f40$c28aadc0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: [ExI] LIGO

 

>?Unless there is some last second glitch the 2 LIGO detectors in the USA and the Virgo detector in Italy will go back online on Monday. The 2 LIGO detectors will be about 40% more sensitive now after the upgrade and the slightly smaller Virgo detector about 50% better. And because their ability to detect waves only decreases lineally with distance not as distance squared together they will be able to see gravitational events in about 3 times the previous volume. They should run for a year before being shut down for yet another upgrade.

 

John K Clark

 

 

 

Aren?t you glad you lived this late in history?  Me too.  I am remembering the feeling we got when the Hubble was repaired and started sending back good images.

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 22:00:30 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 17:00:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] again for MS
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa15vBX_5=Bc2nxA3M9Vw8Y_eMu9h+vUpyfi_2B9na-cg@mail.gmail.com>

I have a son who has MS.  Continuing in this book, 10% Human, I found
several cases where a person who had MS, in one case who could not walk,
who could walk after a fecal transplant, and other symptoms disappeared.

As we all know we are in the first stages of acceptance of these things and
currently the FDA only allows fecal transplants for C. diff. but surely
that will be loosened for other disorders as the data come in.

Please alert anyone who knows someone with MS.  There seems to be some real
hope here.

bill w
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From interzone at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 22:16:31 2019
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 18:16:31 -0400
Subject: [ExI] again for MS
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa15vBX_5=Bc2nxA3M9Vw8Y_eMu9h+vUpyfi_2B9na-cg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEa15vBX_5=Bc2nxA3M9Vw8Y_eMu9h+vUpyfi_2B9na-cg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH9e7CXWNZNFEUAss+5D6MkSmRGE-bsfHexWQSu+h7zKYQ@mail.gmail.com>

Bill-

You may also want to look into rapamycin as a possible off label MS
treatment although there is somewhat limited data on it.  In addition, most
of the side effects of rapamycin fall away if it is pulsed weekly instead
of taken daily.

Obviously, standard disclaimer to consult a doc with a good understanding
of the drug and disease applies.



On Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:02 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I have a son who has MS.  Continuing in this book, 10% Human, I found
> several cases where a person who had MS, in one case who could not walk,
> who could walk after a fecal transplant, and other symptoms disappeared.
>
> As we all know we are in the first stages of acceptance of these things
> and currently the FDA only allows fecal transplants for C. diff. but surely
> that will be loosened for other disorders as the data come in.
>
> Please alert anyone who knows someone with MS.  There seems to be some
> real hope here.
>
> bill w
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 22:31:43 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 18:31:43 -0400
Subject: [ExI] LIGO
In-Reply-To: <003401d4e4dd$eb838f40$c28aadc0$@rainier66.com>
References: <CAJPayv0BaODvsE8P57NbSkvM736eY+ogt1Fh05bGtwi1Cuf8ig@mail.gmail.com>
 <003401d4e4dd$eb838f40$c28aadc0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1FDbwAb+jbBxEQv_Mt1SfQubZb2V4ymS8ZZe6oZF9AOQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 4:51 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:



>

> *>Aren?t you glad you lived this late in history? *
>

Indeed I am, the good old days sucked compared with now!  And if we're
lucky before the end of the year a fourth detector, KAGRA in Japan, may
join the party; and although smaller than LIGO it might turn out to be
even more
sensitive because unlike the other 3 it's built underground and does not
work at room temperature but is cooled down to 20 degrees Kelvin (-253 C,
-425 F) . I think that is very cool, in more ways than one.

John k Clark



>
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From spike at rainier66.com  Wed Mar 27 23:08:46 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 16:08:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] LIGO
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1FDbwAb+jbBxEQv_Mt1SfQubZb2V4ymS8ZZe6oZF9AOQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv0BaODvsE8P57NbSkvM736eY+ogt1Fh05bGtwi1Cuf8ig@mail.gmail.com>
 <003401d4e4dd$eb838f40$c28aadc0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv1FDbwAb+jbBxEQv_Mt1SfQubZb2V4ymS8ZZe6oZF9AOQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <002f01d4e4f2$08861310$19923930$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2019 3:32 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] LIGO

 

 

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 4:51 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

 

>Aren?t you glad you lived this late in history? 

 

>?Indeed I am, the good old days sucked compared with now!  And if we're lucky before the end of the year a fourth detector, KAGRA in Japan, may join the party; and although smaller than LIGO it might turn out to be even more sensitive because unlike the other 3 it's built underground and does not work at room temperature but is cooled down to 20 degrees Kelvin (-253 C, -425 F) . I think that is very cool, in more ways than one.

 

John k Clark

 

 

 

 

 

Indeed.  Now that we know there is something there to be found, money for gravity wave detectors flows like the river and physics students are falling all over themselves to learn up on gravity models.  It took so long and was so hard to get the first LIGO built.  But now, noooo problem, and staffing it is even easier.

Plenty of scientists are realizing that the LIGOs are perhaps the most valuable scientific instruments now available from the point of view of science per dollar ROI.

 

spike 

 

 

 

 

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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Mar 27 23:16:38 2019
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 16:16:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] what3words hipsters
In-Reply-To: <001b01d4e4a1$f79b88a0$e6d299e0$@rainier66.com>
References: <002001d4e323$bb8df430$32a9dc90$@rainier66.com>
 <dd2f5288-5ed0-27a4-a7bf-621aed64c89d@gmail.com>
 <001b01d4e4a1$f79b88a0$e6d299e0$@rainier66.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQiqfnVi4WweR_s4Z6YFY7ShNNvj7AJry=Pq9VPRHhQHw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 6:41 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> The whole exercise focuses attention on the special places on the globe,
> such as latitude 0 longitude 0.  Where is it?  Out in the middle of the
> South Atlantic Ocean, in that piece were South America was torn away a
> billion years ago.  Doesn't that seem just wrong?  Couldn't they start the
> numbering such that we could at least have a plaque there?  Failing that,
> seems like we could name that square all.starts.here.

0,0 gets prosecuted.amplification.showings.  One could read a bit of
poetry into that - but then, one could read a bit of poetry into most
things.

> And what about the poles?  Shouldn't they get a special name?  Call them
> so.cold.here. and shit.polar.bear. for instance.

It turns out the have a bunch of combos for the poles.  They go off of
the flat map that is Google Maps (or similar), meaning there are just
as many squares around the poles as around the equator.  You can even
scroll right off the map, above the North Pole, and they still have
word combos - for places that don't exist.

From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Mar 28 04:49:10 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 21:49:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] again for MS
Message-ID: <20190327214910.Horde.z9t4K_RomT5LatLhdnU1ePk@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>

Apparently the clinical trial testing efficacy of fecal transplants  
for MS is still accepting study participants at UCSF.

https://clinicaltrials.ucsf.edu/trial/NCT03594487

Stuart LaForge



From sparge at gmail.com  Thu Mar 28 12:14:28 2019
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 08:14:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] again for MS
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa15vBX_5=Bc2nxA3M9Vw8Y_eMu9h+vUpyfi_2B9na-cg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEa15vBX_5=Bc2nxA3M9Vw8Y_eMu9h+vUpyfi_2B9na-cg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2dp+RaRAFC9rfCBov_DOFFLSSBmwDTa4EYY46f8OuEang@mail.gmail.com>

Bill are you familiar with Terry Wahls?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc

This is consistent with fecal transplant since diet pretty much determines
microbiome. FC might be a jumpstart, but without a supporting diet I don't
think it'll permanently change the microbiome significantly.

-Dave

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 6:05 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I have a son who has MS.  Continuing in this book, 10% Human, I found
> several cases where a person who had MS, in one case who could not walk,
> who could walk after a fecal transplant, and other symptoms disappeared.
>
> As we all know we are in the first stages of acceptance of these things
> and currently the FDA only allows fecal transplants for C. diff. but surely
> that will be loosened for other disorders as the data come in.
>
> Please alert anyone who knows someone with MS.  There seems to be some
> real hope here.
>
> 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 sparge at gmail.com  Thu Mar 28 14:39:39 2019
From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill)
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 10:39:39 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM5aL2cuN4SE1mw6qTzRz2YBkL+Emr8bCdzDgw3H9kDUsfejdQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 11:19 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> For the zoo hypothesis to be true ET would have to somehow circumvent the
> Second Law Of Thermodynamics (where does the waste heat from ET's
> civilization go and why can't we find it?)
>

Maybe they don't waste it.


> and they go to the trouble of performing this superhuman majical task for
> the sole purpose of keeping ape descendants on a small planet ignorant of
> their surroundings.  This all seems somewhat unlikely to me.
>

Maybe they don't care about hiding from us: either hiding from specific
others or just being cautious, or not intentionally hiding.

-Dave
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Mar 28 15:21:50 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 11:21:50 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2cuN4SE1mw6qTzRz2YBkL+Emr8bCdzDgw3H9kDUsfejdQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2cuN4SE1mw6qTzRz2YBkL+Emr8bCdzDgw3H9kDUsfejdQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0xQaDr6ecb=OG3nO86H0RiUhm=JDZKFZYoveG66FvzZA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 10:45 AM Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

>> For the zoo hypothesis to be true ET would have to somehow circumvent
>> the Second Law Of Thermodynamics (where does the waste heat from ET's
>> civilization go and why can't we find it?)
>>
>
> *> Maybe they don't waste it.*
>

The law of physics I think even a Jupiter Brain in the year 3019 would most
likely still believe to be true is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, more
than the first law or General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics or anything
else. I agree 100% with Arthur Eddington who said:

*?The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme
position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your
pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations -
then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be
contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things
sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of
Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse
in deepest humiliation.?*

John K Clark


>
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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Mar 28 15:51:29 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 08:51:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <1886759693.12645901.1553787506149@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1886759693.12645901.1553787506149@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190328085129.Horde.agL3CIlICN8kvwLQcnqSLkm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


John Clark wrote:

> For the zoo hypothesis to be true ET would have to somehow  
> circumvent the Second Law Of Thermodynamics (where does the waste  
> heat from ET's civilization go and why can't we find it?) and they  
> go to the trouble of performing this superhuman majical task for the  
> sole purpose of keeping ape descendants on a small planet ignorant  
> of their surroundings.? This all seems somewhat unlikely to me.

Looking for waste heat in the sky might be like trying to find needles  
in a haystack. There are plenty of invisible IR sources out there.  
Some of them even occasionally emit radio waves or x-rays. Astronomers  
classify them as brown dwarfs. 1 out 6 stars are thought to be brown  
dwarfs. Some are even thought to have halos and obscuring dust clouds.

So how precisely do we distinguish between brown dwarfs and Dyson  
swarms? Which is "waste heat" and which is just plain heat? If Tabby's  
star were permanently become dim, would we classify it as a brown dwarf?

When it comes to ET, I don't think we know precisely what we are  
looking for or how to go about looking for it.

Stuart LaForge



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Thu Mar 28 19:42:09 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 15:42:09 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <20190328085129.Horde.agL3CIlICN8kvwLQcnqSLkm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1886759693.12645901.1553787506149@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190328085129.Horde.agL3CIlICN8kvwLQcnqSLkm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3yw53JLh1Y+Be7X9KuKuPMsHSoLb5x-eoiE7cyNuXTzA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:56 AM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> *Looking for waste heat in the sky might be like trying to find needles
> in a haystack.*


Not if it's a type 2 civilization, and a type 3 would be obvious from
anywhere in the universe.

> *So how precisely do we distinguish between brown dwarfs and Dyson
> swarms? *


A star needs at least 75 Jupiter masses (or 8% of the sun's mass) for it to
undergo nuclear fusion, a Brown Dwarf is less massive than that and thus
would be a lousy power source because it is not a star.  The smallest true
stars are M class stars but they can't be Dyson Spheres. If you plot the
total energy output of a star against its color (principle wavelength
outputted) you get a Hertzsprung Russell diagram. This plot has been made
for many millions of stars and the space on the diagram where Dyson Spheres
should be is a big blank, no star has the needed combination of luminosity
and color. For example a star that had the same luminosity as our sun but
radiated most of its energy in the infrared would be a very strong
candidate for being a Dyson Sphere, but nobody has ever seen such a thing;
there are infrared stars but all of them are either thousands of times less
luminous than the sun or thousands of times more luminous. In ever star so
far discovered the relationship between luminosity and color can be
explained with the standard theory of stellar evolution with no need to
resort to ET.

Hertzsprung Russell Diagram
<https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*k1vaMquGoiOVBiOE.jpg>

>
> *When it comes to ET, I don't think we know precisely what we are  looking
> for or how to go about looking for it.*
>

We are looking for a civilization that makes use of high frequency light
and outputs low frequency light as a waste product, and we know exactly how
to look for it, with infrared and microwave telescopes, but we've never
seen even a hint of it.

John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 28 22:26:35 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 17:26:35 -0500
Subject: [ExI] again for MS
In-Reply-To: <CAM5aL2dp+RaRAFC9rfCBov_DOFFLSSBmwDTa4EYY46f8OuEang@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEa15vBX_5=Bc2nxA3M9Vw8Y_eMu9h+vUpyfi_2B9na-cg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAM5aL2dp+RaRAFC9rfCBov_DOFFLSSBmwDTa4EYY46f8OuEang@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa_z+4dj_fZcwT0LgVbOo0AnTZaiEkQ0RTu9uz7H6DDHg@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks a lot, Dave.  Read her story, ordered her book for my son Joel.
bill w

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 7:19 AM Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bill are you familiar with Terry Wahls?
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc
>
> This is consistent with fecal transplant since diet pretty much determines
> microbiome. FC might be a jumpstart, but without a supporting diet I don't
> think it'll permanently change the microbiome significantly.
>
> -Dave
>
> On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 6:05 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I have a son who has MS.  Continuing in this book, 10% Human, I found
>> several cases where a person who had MS, in one case who could not walk,
>> who could walk after a fecal transplant, and other symptoms disappeared.
>>
>> As we all know we are in the first stages of acceptance of these things
>> and currently the FDA only allows fecal transplants for C. diff. but surely
>> that will be loosened for other disorders as the data come in.
>>
>> Please alert anyone who knows someone with MS.  There seems to be some
>> real hope here.
>>
>> 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 steinberg.will at gmail.com  Fri Mar 29 14:55:29 2019
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2019 10:55:29 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3yw53JLh1Y+Be7X9KuKuPMsHSoLb5x-eoiE7cyNuXTzA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1886759693.12645901.1553787506149@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190328085129.Horde.agL3CIlICN8kvwLQcnqSLkm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv3yw53JLh1Y+Be7X9KuKuPMsHSoLb5x-eoiE7cyNuXTzA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyEdVsy1SKOJz2GYOnwq2acrqtfTGeCadioevfBmy8MdNg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 3:45 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> >
>> *When it comes to ET, I don't think we know precisely what we are
>> looking for or how to go about looking for it.*
>>
>
> We are looking for a civilization that makes use of high frequency light
> and outputs low frequency light as a waste product, and we know exactly how
> to look for it, with infrared and microwave telescopes, but we've never
> seen even a hint of it.
>

An ant looking only for giant anthills would find no evidence in their
opinion of our civilization.

1) Alternate energy sources/entropy sinks which we do not yet understand

2) Deliberate cloaking

The second might be more likely.

"We know exactly how to look for incoming enemy planes, and we don't see a
hint of them", then a stealth bomber came and blew up whoever said that ;)
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Mar 29 16:13:08 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2019 12:13:08 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyEdVsy1SKOJz2GYOnwq2acrqtfTGeCadioevfBmy8MdNg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1886759693.12645901.1553787506149@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190328085129.Horde.agL3CIlICN8kvwLQcnqSLkm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv3yw53JLh1Y+Be7X9KuKuPMsHSoLb5x-eoiE7cyNuXTzA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv21CDSBi5bW4CKbasOwO73j2yCtTY6ywLiwSfn5OkuUTA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 11:01 AM Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> We are looking for a civilization that makes use of high frequency light
>> and outputs low frequency light as a waste product, and we know exactly how
>> to look for it, with infrared and microwave telescopes, but we've never
>> seen even a hint of it.
>>
>
> *> An ant looking only for giant anthills would find no evidence in their
> opinion of our civilization. *
>

That's because ants are dumb and don't even know the difference between
civilization and non-civilization.

> 1) Alternate energy sources/entropy sinks which we do not yet understand
>

When you reject the law that says Entropy always increases you're so you're
invoking not only new physics but new logic and you're doing it so you can
explain a mystery *THAT DOES NOT EXIST*. The great silence is not a mystery
because the argument ET must exist because astronomy can come up with some
big numbers doesn't hold water because biology can come up with even bigger
numbers.

> 2) Deliberate cloaking
> The second might be more likely.
>

Wow, we must be hyper important for ET to go to all the trouble of trashing
the laws of physics and logic that operate the universe just so they can
keep us ignorant!

> "We know exactly how to look for incoming enemy planes, and we don't see
> a hint of them", then a stealth bomber came and blew up whoever said that
>

If that ET stealth bomber can violate the second law of thermodynamics then
it is far more ridiculous than a flying carpet because the carpet only
violates the laws of conservation of momentum and energy, but when you mess
around with the second law you're messing around with the very laws of
logic. I predict that if the multiverse exists some of the laws of physics
may be different in other universes but the one thing they'd all have in
common is the second law.

 John K Clark
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Fri Mar 29 17:00:16 2019
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2019 13:00:16 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv21CDSBi5bW4CKbasOwO73j2yCtTY6ywLiwSfn5OkuUTA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1886759693.12645901.1553787506149@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190328085129.Horde.agL3CIlICN8kvwLQcnqSLkm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv3yw53JLh1Y+Be7X9KuKuPMsHSoLb5x-eoiE7cyNuXTzA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyEdVsy1SKOJz2GYOnwq2acrqtfTGeCadioevfBmy8MdNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv21CDSBi5bW4CKbasOwO73j2yCtTY6ywLiwSfn5OkuUTA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyEuBRkqWPnW2eZWdTu-0RfsLXvDfLEw4w0XMH3P1psprg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 12:16 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 11:01 AM Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> We are looking for a civilization that makes use of high frequency
>>> light and outputs low frequency light as a waste product, and we know
>>> exactly how to look for it, with infrared and microwave telescopes, but
>>> we've never seen even a hint of it.
>>>
>>
>> *> An ant looking only for giant anthills would find no evidence in their
>> opinion of our civilization. *
>>
>
> That's because ants are dumb and don't even know the difference between
> civilization and non-civilization.
>

What makes you think humans are smart enough to know the differenre?


> > 1) Alternate energy sources/entropy sinks which we do not yet understand
>>
>
> When you reject the law that says Entropy always increases you're so
> you're invoking not only new physics but new logic and you're doing it so
> you can explain a mystery *THAT DOES NOT EXIST*. The great silence is not
> a mystery because the argument ET must exist because astronomy can come up
> with some big numbers doesn't hold water because biology can come up with
> even bigger numbers.
>

Assuming they use a Dyson Sphere.


> > 2) Deliberate cloaking
>> The second might be more likely.
>>
>
> Wow, we must be hyper important for ET to go to all the trouble of
> trashing the laws of physics and logic that operate the universe just so
> they can keep us ignorant!
>

Assuming they use a Dyson Sphere.

> "We know exactly how to look for incoming enemy planes, and we don't see
>> a hint of them", then a stealth bomber came and blew up whoever said that
>>
>
> If that ET stealth bomber can violate the second law of thermodynamics
> then it is far more ridiculous than a flying carpet because the carpet only
> violates the laws of conservation of momentum and energy, but when you mess
> around with the second law you're messing around with the very laws of
> logic. I predict that if the multiverse exists some of the laws of physics
> may be different in other universes but the one thing they'd all have in
> common is the second law.
>

Assuming they use a Dyson Sphere.

Why do you assume a Dyson Sphere is the only way for a civilization to get
lots of energy?  For all we know, they've figured out a way to harness
energy that causes the expansion of the universe.  Or, idk they made
themselves a small black hole and throw planets into it and collect Hawking
radiation and use lasers to send the the energy back to their planet.

What I'm proposing specifically may be ridiculous, but I think it stands
pretty clearly that we have no way of knowing whether ET use some kind of
energy collection method that we do not yet have a physics framework for.
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Mar 29 19:13:24 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2019 15:13:24 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyEuBRkqWPnW2eZWdTu-0RfsLXvDfLEw4w0XMH3P1psprg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001d01d4e4a4$eec05aa0$cc410fe0$@rainier66.com>
 <CAJPayv0Byq7U9oPFcDuNB4WZjRPki9cTZ_vv4Kj7BNxf4KuoRQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1886759693.12645901.1553787506149@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190328085129.Horde.agL3CIlICN8kvwLQcnqSLkm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv3yw53JLh1Y+Be7X9KuKuPMsHSoLb5x-eoiE7cyNuXTzA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyEdVsy1SKOJz2GYOnwq2acrqtfTGeCadioevfBmy8MdNg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv21CDSBi5bW4CKbasOwO73j2yCtTY6ywLiwSfn5OkuUTA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyEuBRkqWPnW2eZWdTu-0RfsLXvDfLEw4w0XMH3P1psprg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0kk+3+44g3Xar+K51Bsnr=ga1DJn_gfbO2BA43C07D3A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 1:06 PM Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

> *Why do you assume a Dyson Sphere is the only way for a civilization to
> get lots of energy? *


I don't. But why do you assume there is a mystery at all, much less a
mystery that requires an outlandish explanation to solve?


> *> For all we know, they've figured out a way to harness energy that
> causes the expansion of the universe. *
>

It would not make the slightest difference if they did.  After ET extracted
work out of that expansion energy the second law insists there would be
waste heat, and we just don't see it.

*> Or, idk they made themselves a small black hole and throw planets into
> it and collect Hawking radiation and use lasers to send the the energy back
> to their planet.  *
>

Once again that would make no difference, the specific way ET gets his
energy is not important, what happens to that energy after its been used
is. I don't even care if ET gets his energy from a perpetual motion machine
because that would only violate the first law not the laws of logic as
breaking the second law would; and if ET is extracting work out of energy
without producing waste heat then ET is violating the second law of
thermodynamics regardless of how he got the energy. And that is just nuts.

 John K Clark





>
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 02:18:44 2019
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2019 19:18:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>

John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> The law of physics I think even a Jupiter Brain in the year 3019 would most
likely still believe to be true is the Second Law of Thermodynamics,

I think the second law prevents a Jupiter Brain from being built.

The problem is that computation produces waste heat and that has to be
radiated to keep the "brain" from overheating.  There are conflicting
problems with large computational nodes, you need to keep the size
small to minimize speed of light delays and you need to make it large
to get rid of the waste heat.  (Or you can sink it in the deep ocean.)

Keith

From spike at rainier66.com  Sat Mar 30 03:04:55 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2019 20:04:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004701d4e6a5$5ac02080$10406180$@rainier66.com>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Keith Henson
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2019 7:19 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] fermi question alive and well

John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> The law of physics I think even a Jupiter Brain in the year 3019 would 
> most
likely still believe to be true is the Second Law of Thermodynamics,

I think the second law prevents a Jupiter Brain from being built.

The problem is that computation produces waste heat and that has to be
radiated to keep the "brain" from overheating.  There are conflicting
problems with large computational nodes, you need to keep the size small to
minimize speed of light delays and you need to make it large to get rid of
the waste heat.  (Or you can sink it in the deep ocean.)

Keith
_______________________________________________



Keith I am inclined to disagree that a Jupiter brain is impossible because
of the second law, but agree that an M-Brain probably is impossible.  Or if
an M-brain is possible, it would need to be sufficiently diffuse that the
majority of the low-entropy energy has to be allowed to radiate away unused.

Damn.  {8-[

spike


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 13:49:46 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 09:49:46 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 10:25 PM Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:

>

>
>
>
>
>
> * > I think the second law prevents a Jupiter Brain from being built.The
> problem is that computation produces waste heat and that has to be radiated
> to keep the "brain" from overheating.  There are conflicting problems with
> large computational nodes, you need to keep the size small to minimize
> speed of light delays and you need to make it large to get rid of the waste
> heat.  (Or you can sink it in the deep ocean.)*


It's true Jupiter Brain engineers would have to be careful with the heat
but it would not represent a insurmountable problem. As far as speed is
concernedthe fastest signals in the human brain move at a couple of hundred
meters a second, many are far slower, light moves at 300 million meters per
second. If you insist that the 2 most distant parts of the Jupiter Brain
communicate no slower than they do in a human brain then parts in the brain
of a AI could be at least one million times more distant. The human brain
is about half a foot in diameter so the AI could have a brain about a
hundred miles in diameter. Another problem is the outside surface where
heat is radiated away only increases with the square of the radius while
the volume increases with the cube, so the density of the heat producing logic
components would have to decrease with 1/r.

So OK, "Jupiter Brain" may be a bit of an exaggeration, perhaps "Asteroid
Brain" would be a more accurate (but less poetic) name, although the mind
such a brain could produce would be more Jupiter size than  Asteroid size
because the components of the AI's brain would be much smaller than the
components of our human brain.

And a hundred miles across is still pretty big for a brain. The volume
increases by the cube of the distance, our brains are about half a foot in
diameter so such a brain would physically be a million trillion times
larger than a human brain. Even if 99.9% of that space were used just to
get rid of waste heat you'd still have a thousand trillion times as much
volume for logic and memory components as humans have room for inside their
heads.

Helium would be the ideal substance to fill those cooling pipes. Helium
liquefies at 4.2 K but when it gets below 2.17 K it becomes a super-fluid
called Helium-2 that has zero viscosity (provided the pipe the helium is
flowing through does not have a diameter smaller than 10^-9 meters) so you
can pump a lot of Helium through a pipe very quickly. And Helium-2 is also
by far the best conductor of heat known, it conducts heat so fast (over 20
meters a second) that all the Helium is at the same temperature, there are
no hot spots in it and thus no bubbles to interfere with the free flow of
fluid.

 John K Clark
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 15:11:50 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 11:11:50 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2=6wjNk8KnQk41RKu1nPGu4a9es1FaTNjf55EsLXC2Nw@mail.gmail.com>

A second galaxy has been found that contains no Dark Matter. These odd
galaxies are about the same size as our Milky Way but contain 200 times
fewer stars. They pretty much rule out the idea that Dark Matter doesn't
exist and our laws of gravity just need to change because unlike every
other galaxy studied these 2 oddballs behave just as Newton says they
should.

Second galaxy without dark matter discovered
<http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/03/ghostly-galaxy-without-dark-matter-confirmed>

John K Clark
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 16:00:33 2019
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 12:00:33 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>

Does this have anything to add to the ongoing discussion of "waste heat"?
https://www.livescience.com/64995-heat-speed-of-sound-through-graphite.html

If heat can be focussed analogous to light in a laser, it might not be
directed at us.

If advanced kardashev civs have learned eco-friendly engineering at
glactic-scale, would we have evidence?

I have a hard time understanding the incredible hubris required to look at
some squiggles from telescopes to decide the fate of the universe.   We may
have admitted that the earth orbits the sun,  but it feels like we still
believe the universe solely for us - maybe it does,  but asserting that as
truth feels analogous to flat-earth assertions.
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 16:11:38 2019
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 12:11:38 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyFk6+jbPQ0ANuOBj6VoL+BWcvkcVS8EttSCVPjbS=7CRQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 12:02 Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

>  have a hard time understanding the incredible hubris required to look at
> some squiggles from telescopes to decide the fate of the universe.   We may
> have admitted that the earth orbits the sun,  but it feels like we still
> believe the universe solely for us - maybe it does,  but asserting that as
> truth feels analogous to flat-earth assertions.
>

Hubris is the mask but not the core.  The core is insecurity and fear of
the unknown.  Fear of death.  Fear of consicousness having no place in
current models of the universe.

Fear of tautology.

This is very clear, in my opinion.

The geocentrists surely thought they were on the cutting edge as well.

>
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 16:13:17 2019
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 12:13:17 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyFk6+jbPQ0ANuOBj6VoL+BWcvkcVS8EttSCVPjbS=7CRQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyFk6+jbPQ0ANuOBj6VoL+BWcvkcVS8EttSCVPjbS=7CRQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyGpEzf-NrKhJcxWarRAgDc07AE5GcRBqvB-8OB2+sr9pw@mail.gmail.com>

Apologies for the double post, but:

Fear which is summed up most concisely by the belief that consciousness
would be restricted to brains, a sort of nu-vitalism if you will.
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 16:25:21 2019
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 16:25:21 +0000
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiuKpN0wsoeE=JwvUnid3A1tc0LUCSAcFFNkBvt3d_LXA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, 30 Mar 2019 at 16:06, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Does this have anything to add to the ongoing discussion of "waste heat"?
> https://www.livescience.com/64995-heat-speed-of-sound-through-graphite.html
>
> If heat can be focussed analogous to light in a laser, it might not be directed at us.
>
> If advanced kardashev civs have learned eco-friendly engineering at glactic-scale, would we have evidence?
>
> I have a hard time understanding the incredible hubris required to look at some squiggles from telescopes to decide the fate of the universe.   We may have admitted that the earth orbits the sun,  but it feels like we still believe the universe solely for us - maybe it does,  but asserting that as truth feels analogous to flat-earth assertions.
> _______________________________________________


I have doubts about the whole idea of 'waste heat'.  Heat is
incredibly useful, especially in the depths of space.
You have to assume that the Jupiter Brain is only running computation
and has nothing else to do except get rid of heat. That seems really
unlikely to me.
There could be a whole civilisation living off that 'waste heat'!
(That's also the problem with the term 'global warming'. Most people
say they would quite like it to be warm).  :)


BillK


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 17:11:14 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 13:11:14 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3a43Bn7HCHyxgJmcc4w5MnKPa7+0N8xtuOoQQJayi2tw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 12:06 PM Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Does this have anything to add to the ongoing discussion of "waste heat"?
> https://www.livescience.com/64995-heat-speed-of-sound-through-graphite.html
>

It's called "second sound" and was what I was talking about with Helium-2,
but with Helium it works for long distances but with Graphite it works for
less than .01mm

*> If heat can be focussed analogous to light in a laser, it might not be
> directed at us.*
>

Waste heat takes the form of low temperature Black Body radiation, it is
very diffuse, consists at many different wavelengths and moves in many
directions. A Laser beam is very concentrated, is at only one wavelength,
and moves in only one direction. So a Laser has much less Entropy than
Black Body radiation. So if you make a Laser beam you're going to create a
lot of waste heat and getting rid of that heat is the very thing you're
trying to do. So a Laser radiator makes no sense.

> *If advanced kardashev civs have learned eco-friendly engineering at
> glactic-scale, would we have evidence?*
>

We would unless "eco-friendly engineering at a glactic-scale" means doing
absolutely nothing to the galaxy.


> > the incredible hubris required to look at some squiggles from
> telescopes to decide the fate of the universe.
>

Yes, but you almost make that sound like a bad thing.

 John K Clark


>
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From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 17:46:27 2019
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 13:46:27 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3a43Bn7HCHyxgJmcc4w5MnKPa7+0N8xtuOoQQJayi2tw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3a43Bn7HCHyxgJmcc4w5MnKPa7+0N8xtuOoQQJayi2tw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyE5qQv2_G0C4tvdwQrwfLOEtENCK1XXVKD3fN7+FCim9w@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 13:14 John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> > the incredible hubris required to look at some squiggles from
>> telescopes to decide the fate of the universe.
>>
>
> Yes, but you almost make that sound like a bad thing.
>

It's only bad if you mind being put in the same boat at those who were so
confident that God created the universe centered around Earth with the sun
revolving around us.

I mean, it's not like they didn't have evidence, right?  If you use your
eyes, watching the sun rise and set, it's pretty obvious that it revolves
around the Earth.

Honestly though, do you not see the parallels?  Do you think the current
mode of understanding is the be-all, end-all?

Nothing left to figure out?  What about what consciousness is and how it
fits into physics?  Or what the universe is, why it's expanding, or why
there appears to be so much more matter that we can see?  Does none of that
warrant an explanation?

Hearing you talk, it's as if you think there's no more truth to be figured
out.  And that there is why hubris might be bad.  When we figure more out,
you'll surely look silly for acting as if you know anything more than a
drop.
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 20:04:55 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 16:04:55 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiuKpN0wsoeE=JwvUnid3A1tc0LUCSAcFFNkBvt3d_LXA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armiuKpN0wsoeE=JwvUnid3A1tc0LUCSAcFFNkBvt3d_LXA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1XwL1vrmwuuQMs-JnpeVOg63nm4yT0+g4T1RQt8-Xq-w@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 1:05 PM BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:



> > *Heat is incredibly useful, especially in the depths of space.*


The usefulness of heat, that is to say the ability to extract work out of
it, depends on how hot it is. The closer that heat comes to the temperature
of deep space, 2.7 degrees Kelvin, the less useful it is. The equation for
efficiency in extracting work out of heat is 1-Tc/Th when Tc is the
temperature of your cold heat sink (which is never less than 2.7 K) and Th
is the temperature of your hot heat source. If those 2 temperatures are
same then the efficiency is precisely zero.  And that means zero work
obtained.


> > There could be a whole civilisation living off that 'waste heat'!
>

If they're still extracting work out of it then it's not waste heat, but
you can be absolutely certain if they are extracting work out of it then
they *WILL *produce waste heat. The point is after you've finished using
energy it is not destroyed but is converted to a higher entropy form that
is much more difficult to obtain work from.

 John K Clark



>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 20:59:22 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 16:59:22 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyE5qQv2_G0C4tvdwQrwfLOEtENCK1XXVKD3fN7+FCim9w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbJBaf4S2LaTMH8uvE-bt4BksSupj58JDr+GyM5idu64Gw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3a43Bn7HCHyxgJmcc4w5MnKPa7+0N8xtuOoQQJayi2tw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyE5qQv2_G0C4tvdwQrwfLOEtENCK1XXVKD3fN7+FCim9w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0PhAhduGgDNsoZn82JYoxLVNXMfffPJ1Ygm5U=5zNsng@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 1:52 PM Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:



> > Nothing left to figure out?  What about what consciousness is and how
> it fits into physics?
>


> I'll be damned if I know what that that has to do with the existence or
non-existence of ET but I'd be FAR more interested in figuring out how
intelligence works than figuring out consciousness because intelligence
theories can be tested but consciousness theories can't be,



> *> Or what the universe is, why it's expanding, or why there appears to be
> so much more matter that we can see?  Does none of that warrant an
> explanation?*


None of those mysteries have a satisfactory explanation but the lack of
evidence of ET activity does and the explanation has the virtue of being
simple and short, ET doesn't exist. Under some circumstances the absence of
evidence is evidence of absence, for example there is no evidence a china
teapot is in orbit around Uranus and that is good reason to think such
a utensil does not exist.

John K Clark



>
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From avant at sollegro.com  Sat Mar 30 21:09:01 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 14:09:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
Message-ID: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


Quoting John Clark:


> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 11:56 AM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:
>> *So how precisely do we distinguish between brown dwarfs and Dyson
>> swarms? *
>
>
> A star needs at least 75 Jupiter masses (or 8% of the sun's mass) for it to
> undergo nuclear fusion, a Brown Dwarf is less massive than that and thus
> would be a lousy power source because it is not a star.  The smallest true
> stars are M class stars but they can't be Dyson Spheres. If you plot the
> total energy output of a star against its color (principle wavelength
> outputted) you get a Hertzsprung Russell diagram.

Yes. I don't think you quite understood what I was saying. The  
spectrum of a Dyson swarm that is far away could be confused for a  
brown dwarf that is much closer. Its because of how apparent versus  
absolute magnitudes depend on the distances involved.

> This plot has been made
> for many millions of stars and the space on the diagram where Dyson Spheres
> should be is a big blank, no star has the needed combination of luminosity
> and color. For example a star that had the same luminosity as our sun but
> radiated most of its energy in the infrared would be a very strong
> candidate for being a Dyson Sphere, but nobody has ever seen such a thing;
> there are infrared stars but all of them are either thousands of times less
> luminous than the sun or thousands of times more luminous. In ever star so
> far discovered the relationship between luminosity and color can be
> explained with the standard theory of stellar evolution with no need to
> resort to ET.
>
> Hertzsprung Russell Diagram
> <https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*k1vaMquGoiOVBiOE.jpg>

Wow. Ok yeah, Gaia is a wonderful instrument. It can measure distances  
to stars using parallax and get absolute magnitudes from that. That  
means it is a good detector for waste heat within the accuracy of its  
parallax measurements which are on the order of 10^4 light-years range.

Yet still the Gaia dataset only contains around a billion stars so  
that is less than one percent of the stars in the Milky Way.

Incidentally all this data from Gaia allows us to update our Bayesian  
priors regarding the existence of Dyson technology. Assuming the  
existence or non-existence of a Dyson sphere around given stars are  
measurements independent of one another, one gets that P(DS) the  
probability that a given star has a Dyson sphere in our galaxy has an  
upper bound of

P(DS) <= 1-[(n+1)/(n+2)] where n is the number of stars that Gaia has  
screened.

Assuming she has screened exactly 1 billion stars to date, the  
probability of the existence of one or more Dyson spheres in our  
galaxy is at most 1/1,000,000,001.

This could mean ET doesn't exist but I think it more likely means  
Dyson spheres are not practical to build.

This makes biological sense in a way. Senses, heads, and ultimately  
brains evolved to deal with the evolution of motility. Plants, fungi,  
sea anemones, and other stationary creatures never developed brains  
because their inactive lives did not need them. Fish on the other hand  
needed senses and brains to cope with avoiding obstacles and predators  
while swimming around at high speed.

Maybe jupiter brains that stay put around star systems vegetate and  
become stupid due to lack of stimulation.


>> *When it comes to ET, I don't think we know precisely what we are  looking
>> for or how to go about looking for it.*
>>
>
> We are looking for a civilization that makes use of high frequency light
> and outputs low frequency light as a waste product, and we know exactly how
> to look for it, with infrared and microwave telescopes, but we've never
> seen even a hint of it.

Admittedly Gaia is a game changer, before her it was very easy for an  
astronomer to overlook a far away Dyson sphere by mistaking it for a  
nearby brown dwarf. Especially since the farther away it was the more  
likely light from it would pass through clouds of gas and pick up  
absorption lines.

Stuart LaForge




From interzone at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 21:41:09 2019
From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 17:41:09 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAJrqPH8EjXHKDDtrOz3e14OqF+4oriTzFr1+8RhSjLLg7pOtHA@mail.gmail.com>

I find the most simple explanation for the Fermi paradox is that the odds
of intelligent life evolving and being able to reach a technological level
that starts at the industrial revolution and reaches the level we are at
now are infinitesimally small despite the vastness of potentially habitable
planets in the observable universe, let alone develops the abilities to be
classified as a Type 2 civilization.

The chain of events that got humanity to where we are today strikes me as
extremely unlikely based on the evidence (or lack thereof) around ETs.

Granted, we don't know the odds of even "simple" life evolving, but even if
prokaryotic (or equivalent) life is common throughout the universe, the
various leaps required to get to intelligence and later civilization where
knowledge accelerates before extinction are mind boggling as far as I'm
concerned.

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 5:15 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

>
> Quoting John Clark:
>
> >> *When it comes to ET, I don't think we know precisely what we are
> looking
> >> for or how to go about looking for it.*
> >>
> >
> > We are looking for a civilization that makes use of high frequency light
> > and outputs low frequency light as a waste product, and we know exactly
> how
> > to look for it, with infrared and microwave telescopes, but we've never
> > seen even a hint of it.
>
> Admittedly Gaia is a game changer, before her it was very easy for an
> astronomer to overlook a far away Dyson sphere by mistaking it for a
> nearby brown dwarf. Especially since the farther away it was the more
> likely light from it would pass through clouds of gas and pick up
> absorption lines.
>
> 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 foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Mar 30 22:12:13 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 17:12:13 -0500
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0PhAhduGgDNsoZn82JYoxLVNXMfffPJ1Ygm5U=5zNsng@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 intelligence theories can be tested but consciousness theories can't be,
John Clark

OH?  And why is that?    Before you reply, I"ll say this:  everything
depends on the definitions.  bill w

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 4:04 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 1:52 PM Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>> > Nothing left to figure out?  What about what consciousness is and how
>> it fits into physics?
>>
>
>
>> I'll be damned if I know what that that has to do with the existence or
> non-existence of ET but I'd be FAR more interested in figuring out how
> intelligence works than figuring out consciousness because intelligence
> theories can be tested but consciousness theories can't be,
>
>
>
>> *> Or what the universe is, why it's expanding, or why there appears to
>> be so much more matter that we can see?  Does none of that warrant an
>> explanation?*
>
>
> None of those mysteries have a satisfactory explanation but the lack of
> evidence of ET activity does and the explanation has the virtue of being
> simple and short, ET doesn't exist. Under some circumstances the absence of
> evidence is evidence of absence, for example there is no evidence a china
> teapot is in orbit around Uranus and that is good reason to think such
> a utensil does not exist.
>
> 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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 00:18:28 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 20:18:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv02hSOdszMRqpfn7d+djCe9J5NKbCfAoGb3zx3Ff2seaA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 5:18 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> Hertzsprung Russell Diagram
>> > <https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*k1vaMquGoiOVBiOE.jpg>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Wow. Ok yeah, Gaia is a wonderful instrument. It can measure distances
> to stars using parallax and get absolute magnitudes from that. That  means
> it is a good detector for waste heat within the accuracy of its  parallax
> measurements which are on the order of 10^4 light-years range.Yet still the
> Gaia dataset only contains around a billion stars so  that is less than one
> percent of the stars in the Milky Way.*
>

Parallax measurement from Gaia gives us a firm foundation to a chain of
distance measurements. For example it tells us precisely how the absolute
brightens of Cepheid Variable stars is related to the frequency of their
variation. Cepheids are very bright stars so that allows us to make very
good distance measurements up to about 200 million light years. And after
we know that we discover that all Type 1A supernovas have nearly identical
absolute magnitude, they are far brighter than even Cepheids so they can
gives us distances to several billion light years. And although more
tentative than the other rungs on the distance ladder Quasars are even
brighter than supernovas and it looks like there is a connection between
how fast they fluctuate and their absolute brightness. That would enable us
to made distance measurements to the end of the observable universe.


> >
> *This could mean ET doesn't exist but I think it more likely means  Dyson
> spheres are not practical to build.*
>

The known laws of physics don't demand that ET exist, but if Dyson spheres
can't be built there must be a new law of physics that we know nothing
about that prevents it; but is never a good idea to conjure up new physics
unless every other possibility has been exhausted

> Maybe jupiter brains that stay put around star systems vegetate and
> become stupid due to lack of stimulation.
>

That could be. I think if technological civilization is common but always
meets a disaster then electronic drug addition would be the cause; we'll
just set the pleasure and happiness dials on our emotional control panel to
eleven and vegetate for eternity.

John K Clark
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 00:37:53 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 20:37:53 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbgN7RbfZvWZu87_qpEx0YBTCv1gQ=sXcZYn6aTnvnhuw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv2on0YGk9g_HVJZ50CACxdWYhsgewgnp7XXv-veZ28U=Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 6:26 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> intelligence theories can be tested but consciousness theories can't
>> be,  John Clark
>
>
> > *OH?  And why is that?   *
>

i can't say why but I can say how. Consciousness theories are too easy to
come up with, they're easy because there are few facts they need to fit
given the fact that the only entity that I know for a fact to be conscious
is me. Intelligence theories are devilishly hard to come up with but there
is a easy way to test them; if your AI companies intelligence theory is a
good one you'll become a billionaire and if its not good you'll go broke.


> *> Before you reply, I"ll say this:  everything depends on the
> definitions.  bill w*
>

I disagree, I think examples are far more important than definitions.
Intelligence is the that quality of mind that  Albert Einstein had and
Donald Trump doesn't.

John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 01:11:32 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 20:11:32 -0500
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2on0YGk9g_HVJZ50CACxdWYhsgewgnp7XXv-veZ28U=Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1cr5ynkKY1XHBBu7BT_kSjEaLBHnnboKuqY72thjJ-xA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaXU=tcXML7wK0pJ0_nPFvjydgzSmky84Qzw=s=Tmxr_Q@mail.gmail.com>

I think examples are far more important than definitions. Intelligence is
the that quality of mind that  Albert Einstein had and Donald Trump
doesn't.

John K Clark

But of what are those people examples?  You must have some definition in
mind to choose those people.  The definition comes first, then the
deduction to the example.  bill w

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 7:42 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 6:26 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> intelligence theories can be tested but consciousness theories can't
>>> be,  John Clark
>>
>>
>> > *OH?  And why is that?   *
>>
>
> i can't say why but I can say how. Consciousness theories are too easy to
> come up with, they're easy because there are few facts they need to fit
> given the fact that the only entity that I know for a fact to be conscious
> is me. Intelligence theories are devilishly hard to come up with but
> there is a easy way to test them; if your AI companies intelligence
> theory is a good one you'll become a billionaire and if its not good
> you'll go broke.
>
>
>> *> Before you reply, I"ll say this:  everything depends on the
>> definitions.  bill w*
>>
>
> I disagree, I think examples are far more important than definitions.
> Intelligence is the that quality of mind that  Albert Einstein had and
> Donald Trump doesn't.
>
> 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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 01:55:20 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 21:55:20 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaXU=tcXML7wK0pJ0_nPFvjydgzSmky84Qzw=s=Tmxr_Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv2Kuo=ewevKjB5J0NP3cUGmjAtr670JdKyMokM2i_vMHg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 9:17 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> *But of what are those people examples? You must have some definition in
> mind to choose those people.*


No, I have examples of people who can do things with their mind similar to
stuff Albert Einstein could  do with his, Alan Turing would meet that
criteria for intelligence.


> *> The definition comes first,*
>

Where do you think lexicographers get the knowledge to write their
dictionary? From examples of language use of course. All definition are
made of words in a dictionary, and those words also have definitions that
are in the same dictionary, and round and round it goes. The only thing
that can break us out of that infinite loop and give real meaning to
language is is examples; I point to a tall thing with green stuff at the
top and say "tree" and you get the idea. Without examples language is just
noises made by the mouth or a sequence of ASCII symbols on a page that
corresponds with other ASCII symbols on another page, one squiggle would
mean another squiggle and that's all it would mean.


> > *then the deduction to the example.*
>

Most people have not looked at a dictionary in 40 years since their fourth
grade teacher made them, and yet they get along just fine.

 John K Clark
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From avant at sollegro.com  Sun Mar 31 02:05:42 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 19:05:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <672842118.13875859.1553994492983@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv02hSOdszMRqpfn7d+djCe9J5NKbCfAoGb3zx3Ff2seaA@mail.gmail.com>
 <672842118.13875859.1553994492983@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20190330190542.Horde.BfANuNu8KtvII9coMXZ_cqX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


John Clark wrote:

> Parallax measurement from Gaia gives us a firm foundation to a chain  
> of distance measurements. For example it tells us precisely how the  
> absolute brightens of Cepheid Variable stars is related to  
> the?frequency?of their variation. Cepheids are very bright stars so  
> that allows us to make very good distance measurements up to about  
> 200 million light years. And after we know that we discover that all  
> Type 1A supernovas have nearly identical absolute?magnitude, they  
> are far brighter than even?Cepheids so they can gives us distances  
> to several billion light years. And?although more tentative than the  
> other rungs on the distance ladder Quasars are even brighter than  
> supernovas and it looks like there is a connection between how fast  
> they fluctuate and their absolute brightness. That would enable us  
> to made distance measurements to the end of the observable universe.??

What good is that distance yardstick if you can't resolve individual  
stars in other galaxies? I don't see how you could distinguish waste  
heat from the background heat in another galaxy with current  
technology. Except maybe the closest galaxies like our satellite  
galaxies and maybe Andromeda.

>> This could mean ET doesn't exist but I think it more likely means?
> Dyson spheres are not practical to build.
>
> The known laws of physics don't demand that ET exist, but if Dyson  
> spheres can't be built there must be a new law of physics that we  
> know nothing about that prevents it; but is never a good idea to  
> conjure up new physics unless every other possibility has been  
> exhausted ? ?

I don't mean that Dyson spheres can't physically be built, I am saying  
perhaps they are not fit in a Darwinian sense. They might filter  
themselves out and fail to reproduce which is why we don't see them.  
Especially if they have to compete with numerous smaller and more  
agile brains. The problem with the Kardashev scale is that the model  
civilizations are too dependent on solar energy. I can see how being  
able to harness solar energy is a useful trait but if a civilization  
specializes in it, they can't compete against civilizations who  
instead go nuclear and thereby maintain mobility and stellar  
independence.

>> Maybe jupiter brains that stay put around star systems vegetate and?
> become stupid due to lack of stimulation.
>
> That could be. I think if technological civilization is common but  
> always meets a disaster then electronic drug addition would be the  
> cause; we'll just set the pleasure and happiness dials on our  
> emotional control panel to eleven and vegetate for eternity.

That is one possible shape of what I am suggesting.

Stuart LaForge
??



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 02:25:26 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 22:25:26 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <20190330190542.Horde.BfANuNu8KtvII9coMXZ_cqX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv02hSOdszMRqpfn7d+djCe9J5NKbCfAoGb3zx3Ff2seaA@mail.gmail.com>
 <672842118.13875859.1553994492983@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190330190542.Horde.BfANuNu8KtvII9coMXZ_cqX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv08i9Z6fdzmg4dXu8oAEWStB-8UOh_qQUXPEkR97LZmnw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 10:14 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> What good is that distance yardstick if you can't resolve individual
> > stars in other galaxies?


We could stop a Kardashev Type 2 civilization anywhere in the galaxy and a
type 3 anywhere in the observable universe.

John K Clark
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From col.hales at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 03:10:59 2019
From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 14:10:59 +1100
Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2=6wjNk8KnQk41RKu1nPGu4a9es1FaTNjf55EsLXC2Nw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2=6wjNk8KnQk41RKu1nPGu4a9es1FaTNjf55EsLXC2Nw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAGHyZJmffwZpTCOvOBVvsVGU-qrvXUtvQbMG_K588-Uv=t7pDg@mail.gmail.com>

I wonder if the presence/absence of a black hole at the galactic center
might correlate with this finding.


On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 2:14 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> A second galaxy has been found that contains no Dark Matter. These odd
> galaxies are about the same size as our Milky Way but contain 200 times
> fewer stars. They pretty much rule out the idea that Dark Matter doesn't
> exist and our laws of gravity just need to change because unlike every
> other galaxy studied these 2 oddballs behave just as Newton says they
> should.
>
> Second galaxy without dark matter discovered
> <http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/03/ghostly-galaxy-without-dark-matter-confirmed>
>
> 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 danust2012 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 04:33:32 2019
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 21:33:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv08i9Z6fdzmg4dXu8oAEWStB-8UOh_qQUXPEkR97LZmnw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv02hSOdszMRqpfn7d+djCe9J5NKbCfAoGb3zx3Ff2seaA@mail.gmail.com>
 <672842118.13875859.1553994492983@mail.yahoo.com>
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Message-ID: <B734EA8B-0F2C-49B7-9A19-F5A869066E9F@gmail.com>

Spot ? not stop. ;). Yet I believe Stuart is questioning the distance estimates not the detection range. 

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst

> On Mar 30, 2019, at 7:25 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 10:14 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:
>> 
>> > What good is that distance yardstick if you can't resolve individual
>> > stars in other galaxies?
>  
> We could stop a Kardashev Type 2 civilization anywhere in the galaxy and a type 3 anywhere in the observable universe.
> 
> John K Clark 
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sun Mar 31 04:58:16 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2019 21:58:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] double posts:  RE:  fermi question alive and well
Message-ID: <026f01d4e77e$5a7d1770$0f774650$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] fermi question alive and well

 

 

 

>?Apologies for the double post, but:

 

 

There is no need to apologize for a double post or for replying to your own post.  I understand the whole internet protocol and all that, sure fine, and why it is a bad thing for sociopaths, however I disagree that it should be disallowed or even discouraged in such a forum as this.  If we have sociopaths among us, then don?t double post.  But otherwise, read on please.

 

We tend to have more and better ideas after we posted the first one on a topic.  If no one answers the first one, well maybe no one was interested, or everyone was busy, or it was a bonehead notion, but you came up with another idea which was 37% less boneheaded than the first, so go ahead, double post.  Treat this forum like a think-tank.  Why the heck not?   It is an ongoing party, ja?  At meat-world parties I often come up with subsequent ideas and further comments, even if everyone in the room sat in stunned silence at the stupidity of my first comment.

 

Double post away, lads.  Life goes on.

 

spike

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From avant at sollegro.com  Sun Mar 31 07:27:59 2019
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 00:27:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <997227027.13924987.1554015553458@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv02hSOdszMRqpfn7d+djCe9J5NKbCfAoGb3zx3Ff2seaA@mail.gmail.com>
 <672842118.13875859.1553994492983@mail.yahoo.com>
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Message-ID: <20190331002759.Horde.jZW7kRZNxKnWLCzgkw7OTi8@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>


John Clark wrote:

> ?We could [spot] a?Kardashev Type 2 civilization anywhere in the  
> galaxy and a type 3 anywhere in the observable universe.

Could we spot a Type 2 civilization on the other side of the galactic  
bulge with all the intervening dust and gas? How about one just on the  
other side of Barnard 68?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard_68

And Type 3 civilizations are not possible without FTL. How do you hold  
a galactic civilization together when it takes 70,000 years to get  
news at the speed of light from the frontier? Think about how  
unmanageable the Roman Empire became when the communication lag with  
the frontier was months instead of tens of millennia. And these are  
supposed to be machines that live at faster subjective speeds than we  
do? Are super-smart machine intelligences superhumanly patient as well?

Stuart LaForge



From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 12:18:48 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 08:18:48 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <20190331002759.Horde.jZW7kRZNxKnWLCzgkw7OTi8@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
References: <20190330140901.Horde.KpF_eylyT8uN9CvZp8gm95O@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
 <CAJPayv02hSOdszMRqpfn7d+djCe9J5NKbCfAoGb3zx3Ff2seaA@mail.gmail.com>
 <672842118.13875859.1553994492983@mail.yahoo.com>
 <20190330190542.Horde.BfANuNu8KtvII9coMXZ_cqX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv1yWU8Lob811up225ZAS1Gkuf7Qa60KcLvcX=Mk40BYsg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 3:34 AM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

>
>
> *Type 3 civilizations are not possible without FTL. How do you hold  a
> galactic civilization together when it takes 70,000 years to get  news at
> the speed of light from the frontier?*


A single galactic emperor making all the decisions of the Star Wars sort is
not possible but, even if space probes can never go faster than the ones we
make right now, in less than 50 million years a single Von Neumann probe
the size of a grain of sand could engineer a galaxy in such a way that the
entire power output of 100 billion stars was used exclusively for the
manufacture of thought. Such a galaxy would be very hard to miss and yet we
can't find even the hint of one.

>
> *Think about how unmanageable the Roman Empire became when the
> communication lag with  the frontier was months instead of tens of
> millennia.*


That was always a big problem but not so big as to prevent the Roman Empire
for existing for centuries, and Rome existed at the same time there were
civilizations of similar size in China, India, and the Americas.


> *> And these are supposed to be machines that live at faster subjective
> speeds than we do?*


Yes.

> Are super-smart machine intelligences superhumanly patient as well?
>

Why not, it's not as if they don't have the time. And even today people
read books by Plato, a message sent 2500 years ago.

John K Clark
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 16:00:16 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 11:00:16 -0500
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2Kuo=ewevKjB5J0NP3cUGmjAtr670JdKyMokM2i_vMHg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZxcBjaMb1GCyx5WuZ89mvBKX+SMZ=Km7wZbcz2-O+W-g@mail.gmail.com>

It's a matter of words, all right.

How did Pluto get kicked out of the planet category?  The astronomers voted
on criteria for being called a planet.  Thus defining planet.

Starting with examples is an excellent idea.  You observe your example and
make a list of the features of it and come up with a name for that overall
list.  To use your example:  tree.  Leaves, bark, etc.  If it has those
qualities it is a tree, by induction.  Or you can turn it around and give
examples of trees - deduction.

I fail to see how a list of qualities, or criteria, or any other word you
may want to use, is anything different from a definition.  It's just a name
for a set of criteria.

And - of course you can define consciousness.  Just give a list of its
features and bingo - definition.  Consciousness is no more abstract than
'tree'  IF you tie your criteria (definition) to observable things we can
agree on are objective reality.  EEG readings, for instance.

Then we find that some things meet some of the definition but not all of
it, and to make matters worse, meet the definition of something else just
as well as the first thing.

So, is it a planet or isn't it?  Depends on your definition.  OH OH -
wait.  What if we want to redefine something?  Like when they changed the
definition of planet so as to exclude Pluto.  Others argued that they
preferred the original set of criteria (definition).

So who is right?  The majority - they set the definition (criteria).
Subject to change, as in all things in science.

bill w   p.s. I do NOT think that most people get along fine with words -
maybe to others of equal ignorance

On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 9:00 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 9:17 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > *But of what are those people examples? You must have some definition
>> in mind to choose those people.*
>
>
> No, I have examples of people who can do things with their mind similar to
> stuff Albert Einstein could  do with his, Alan Turing would meet that
> criteria for intelligence.
>
>
>> *> The definition comes first,*
>>
>
> Where do you think lexicographers get the knowledge to write their
> dictionary? From examples of language use of course. All definition are
> made of words in a dictionary, and those words also have definitions that
> are in the same dictionary, and round and round it goes. The only thing
> that can break us out of that infinite loop and give real meaning to
> language is is examples; I point to a tall thing with green stuff at the
> top and say "tree" and you get the idea. Without examples language is just
> noises made by the mouth or a sequence of ASCII symbols on a page that
> corresponds with other ASCII symbols on another page, one squiggle would
> mean another squiggle and that's all it would mean.
>
>
>> > *then the deduction to the example.*
>>
>
> Most people have not looked at a dictionary in 40 years since their fourth
> grade teacher made them, and yet they get along just fine.
>
>  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 Mar 31 16:31:09 2019
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 12:31:09 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZxcBjaMb1GCyx5WuZ89mvBKX+SMZ=Km7wZbcz2-O+W-g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAKrqSyEne_vQcKxRLkxq-P4gQuB7-VWC1gm3CKLo5GeV2jGxew@mail.gmail.com>

(Thanks to Spike for mitigating my double posting anxieties)

Now then, JKC--

I merely brought up consciousness to demonstrate the absolute dearth of
human knowledge.  We have zero explanation for what we are or what anything
is.  There are enormous and fundamental gaps in our models of reality.
With that in mind, I think it's clear that hubris is a BAD thing.

Thinking hubris is good is the gravest sin of humans and always leads to
obstinacy.

When thinking about a civilization much more advanced than ours, especially
one with AGI, there's not much speculation we can do that's not silly.

Maybe they have found a way to put waste heat somewhere else.  Maybe they
have a black hole they throw it into.  Who knows?

Cloaking is legitimate.  There could be malevolent entities they wish to
hide from.

But really all I am saying is that a highly advanced (compared to us)
civilization is impossible to analyze in a human framework.
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From spike at rainier66.com  Sun Mar 31 16:44:19 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 09:44:19 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZxcBjaMb1GCyx5WuZ89mvBKX+SMZ=Km7wZbcz2-O+W-g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <016e01d4e7e0$fcd7aaf0$f68700d0$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] fermi question alive and well

 

How did Pluto get kicked out of the planet category?  The astronomers voted on criteria for being called a planet.  Thus defining planet?.

 

 

That one surprises me.  I am surprised the Astromoners couldn?t arrange things a little differently, being as so many people had kind of an emotional connection to Pluto (with the whole Disney dog thing (remind me was Pluto the dog who owned another dog or the dog who was owned by another dog?  (Or was he the dog owned by a giant mouse?  (Any of these scenarios is as disturbing as it is weird.))))

 

The astromoners could have arbitrarily figured out some kind of definition which would stretch far enough to define Pluto as a planet, even though the hardcore Astronomy types would still know it is the biggest of a cluster of at least six gravitationally-bound Edgeworth-Kuiper belt objects.  Either way, Pluto is still cool in my view of life.

 

spike   

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From spike at rainier66.com  Sun Mar 31 16:53:44 2019
From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 09:53:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyEne_vQcKxRLkxq-P4gQuB7-VWC1gm3CKLo5GeV2jGxew@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <017f01d4e7e2$4dacc360$e9064a20$@rainier66.com>

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] fermi question alive and well

 

 

 

 

>?(Thanks to Spike for mitigating my double posting anxieties)

 

 

Unlike the old days where we used paper and stamps, we are not being charged by the post.  Since internet protocol began to evolve, new and better solutions to archive clutter have been found (search engines have advanced dramatically.)  Note that in the days when ExI-Chat was born, most people had 55K dialup modems and 40meg external drives (if you were lucky, 20 if you were a hapless non-geek) and if you are too young to know what I am talking about, count yourself lucky.

 

In light of more recent developments, I encourage periodic re-evaluation of all tradition and protocol, in all areas of our lives, including religion, politics, internet, everything.

 

I don?t even see any reason why we should disallow one-line wisecracks, so long as they are both funny and wise.

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 17:16:21 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 12:16:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <016e01d4e7e0$fcd7aaf0$f68700d0$@rainier66.com>
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Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYpR_uep23j1yTS7yryKCAkxihmPFG5QQt3whC_TuKjNw@mail.gmail.com>

That one surprises me.  I am surprised the Astromoners couldn?t arrange
things a little differently, being as so many people had kind of an
emotional connection to Pluto (with the whole Disney dog thing (remind me
was Pluto the dog who owned another dog or the dog who was owned by another
dog?  (Or was he the dog owned by a giant mouse?  (Any of these scenarios
is as disturbing as it is weird.))))  spike


 Don't you need quadruple parentheses both before and after?   Pluto - dog,
mouse, Spongebob Squarepants - people will accept anything - next book to
hit the charts:  The Wisdom of Spongebob Squarepants.  I would buy it!


bill w

On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 11:50 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
>
>
>
> How did Pluto get kicked out of the planet category?  The astronomers
> voted on criteria for being called a planet.  Thus defining planet?.
>
>
>
>
>
> That one surprises me.  I am surprised the Astromoners couldn?t arrange
> things a little differently, being as so many people had kind of an
> emotional connection to Pluto (with the whole Disney dog thing (remind me
> was Pluto the dog who owned another dog or the dog who was owned by another
> dog?  (Or was he the dog owned by a giant mouse?  (Any of these scenarios
> is as disturbing as it is weird.))))
>
>
>
> The astromoners could have arbitrarily figured out some kind of definition
> which would stretch far enough to define Pluto as a planet, even though the
> hardcore Astronomy types would still know it is the biggest of a cluster of
> at least six gravitationally-bound Edgeworth-Kuiper belt objects.  Either
> way, Pluto is still cool in my view of life.
>
>
>
> 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 Mar 31 17:30:50 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 13:30:50 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZxcBjaMb1GCyx5WuZ89mvBKX+SMZ=Km7wZbcz2-O+W-g@mail.gmail.com>
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On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 12:06 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

How did Pluto get kicked out of the planet category?
>

As we learned more about Pluto we realized it didn't fit the examples that
the other 8 planets set.

> Starting with examples is an excellent idea.  You observe your example
> and make a list of the features of it and come up with a name for that
> overall list.  To use your example:  tree.  Leaves, bark, etc.  If it has
> those qualities it is a tree, by induction.  Or you can turn it around and
> give examples of trees - deduction.
>

All that is true especially the very first part, you always start with
examples of use, the lexicographers who write the definitions know that
better than anyone. Take a look at "The Professor and the Madman " by Simon
Winchester, it entertainingly tells the story of the early days of the
greatest dictionary of them all, The Oxford English Dictionary.


> > I fail to see how a list of qualities, or criteria, or any other word
> you may want to use, is anything different from a definition.
>

By itself a definition in a dictionary just associates one ASCII sequence
with another string of squiggles, if you want to make a link between one of
those strings and something in the real non-squiggle world you're going to
need examples.


> > And - of course you can define consciousness.  Just give a list of its
> features and bingo - definition.
>

And the definition of consciousness is being aware, and the definition of
aware is being sentient, and the definition of sentient is being conscious.
And round and round it goes.


> > Consciousness is no more abstract than 'tree'
>

It's easy to point to a tree, it's harder to point to consciousness.


> > IF you tie your criteria (definition) to observable things we can agree
> on are objective reality.
>

That's what you and I and everybody does, we tie consciousness in others to
something we can observe, intelligent behavior.  That's why we don't think
our fellow humans are conscious all the time, not when they're sleeping or
under anesthesia or dead.  That's also why I find life after death to be
questionable, dead people don't behave very intelligently.

> EEG readings, for instance.
>

Why do you think EEG readings have anything to do with consciousness?
Because when those wave have a certain form people don't behave
intelligently.


> > So who is right?  The majority - they set the definition (criteria).
> Subject to change,
>

Yes. A good lexicographer doesn't set the rules he discovers them from
examples of language use.

John K Clark



>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 19:07:06 2019
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 14:07:06 -0500
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
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References: <CAPiwVB5B5GoCS0ixb6YPbvfuTUcwub8TQQfBQz1SrmoJp3ZGkQ@mail.gmail.com>
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On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 12:36 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 12:06 PM William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> How did Pluto get kicked out of the planet category?
>>
>
> As we learned more about Pluto we realized it didn't fit the examples that
> the other 8 planets set.
> Yes, but you could have used Pluto as the original example and asked if
> the other ones fit it.
>


>
> > Starting with examples is an excellent idea.  You observe your example
>> and make a list of the features of it and come up with a name for that
>> overall list.  To use your example:  tree.  Leaves, bark, etc.  If it has
>> those qualities it is a tree, by induction.  Or you can turn it around and
>> give examples of trees - deduction.
>>
>
> All that is true especially the very first part, you always start with
> examples of use, the lexicographers who write the definitions know that
> better than anyone. Take a look at "The Professor and the Madman " by Simon
> Winchester, it entertainingly tells the story of the early days of the
> greatest dictionary of them all, The Oxford English Dictionary.
>


> Thanks for the book recommendation. Will buy it asap.
>
>> > I fail to see how a list of qualities, or criteria, or any other word
>> you may want to use, is anything different from a definition.
>>
>
> By itself a definition in a dictionary just associates one ASCII sequence
> with another string of squiggles, if you want to make a link between one of
> those strings and something in the real non-squiggle world you're going to
> need examples.
> Did I say I didn't like examples?  Can't have science without operational
> definitions (concrete examples)
>


> > And - of course you can define consciousness.  Just give a list of its
>> features and bingo - definition.
>>
>
> And the definition of consciousness is being aware, and the definition of
> aware is being sentient, and the definition of sentient is being conscious.
> And round and round it goes.
>  Now you are criticizing the dictionary and I agree with you.  Synonyms
> get us nowhere.  But if you define consciousness as certain EEG patterns,
> then we have concrete examples you can see on a screen.
>
>> > Consciousness is no more abstract than 'tree'
>>
>
> It's easy to point to a tree, it's harder to point to consciousness.
> See above - watch the screen
>


> > IF you tie your criteria (definition) to observable things we can agree
>> on are objective reality.
>>
>
> That's what you and I and everybody does, we tie consciousness in others
> to something we can observe, intelligent behavior.  That's why we don't
> think our fellow humans are conscious all the time, not when they're
> sleeping or under anesthesia or dead.  That's also why I find life after
> death to be questionable, dead people don't behave very intelligently.
>
> But sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, and dead people can do that
better than anyone.  Generally speaking, though,  I think formaldehyde is
not helping them.  They should try something else, even carrot juice.


> > EEG readings, for instance.
>>
>
> Why do you think EEG readings have anything to do with consciousness?
> Because when those wave have a certain form people don't behave
> intelligently.
>
>
>> Why are you equating consciousness with intelligent behavior?  A see a
>> lot of the former but not a lot of the latter, esp. at Walmart.
>>
>


>  The majority - they set the definition (criteria).  Subject to change,
>>
>
> Yes. A good lexicographer doesn't set the rules he discovers them from
> examples of language use.
> But not if you are a prescriptionist. They think words are set in meaning
> and should not change.  'Aggravate' always means 'worsening' to them - not
> just 'irritate'.  I think that they lost every battle they got in.
>


> 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 johnkclark at gmail.com  Sun Mar 31 21:15:06 2019
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 17:15:06 -0400
Subject: [ExI] fermi question alive and well
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On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 3:13 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> As we learned more about Pluto we realized it didn't fit the examples
>> that the other 8 planets set.
>>
>

Yes, but you could have used Pluto as the original example and asked if the
> other ones fit it.


In that case we'd call Pluto a planet and need to invent some other ASCII
sequence for the other 8, but examples would still dictate meaning just as
they always do.


> >> the definition of consciousness is being aware, and the definition of
>> aware is being sentient, and the definition of sentient is being conscious.
>> And round and round it goes.
>>
>
>  >  Now you are criticizing the dictionary and I agree with you.
> Synonyms get us nowhere.


it's not the fault of the dictionary, without real world examples cranking
out synonyms is the best it can do.


> > But if you define consciousness as certain EEG patterns, then we have
> concrete examples you can see on a screen.


Whatever consciousness is it's certainly not the squiggly graph produced by
a EEG machine. I repeat the question I asked before, if its not the
observed correlation those patterns have with intelligent behavior what
makes you think a EEG has anything to do with consciousness?


> >> That's what you and I and everybody does, we tie consciousness in
>> others to something we can observe, intelligent behavior.  That's why we
>> don't think our fellow humans are conscious all the time, not when they're
>> sleeping or under anesthesia or dead.  That's also why I find life after
>> death to be questionable, dead people don't behave very intelligently.
>>
>> > But sometimes the best thing to do is nothing,
>

True, that why intelligent behavior is not a perfect test for
consciousness, but its all we've got so it will just have to do.


> > Why are you equating consciousness with intelligent behavior?


Because I can't find anything else that works at all much less works better.

>> A good lexicographer doesn't set the rules he discovers them from
>> examples of language use.
>>
>

*> But not if you are a prescriptionist. They think words are set in
> meaning and should not change.*


Are there really people who hold that view?? language always changes,
except for dead languages like Latin. I can read English but Geoffrey
Chaucer wrote in Middle English and I can only recognize about one word in
three, and even then the meaning of the word has changed so much and the
grammar is so different that I have one hell of a time figuring out what
the man is trying to say. And I've heard Old English spoken and it's
completely indecipherable, to my ears it sounds like German not English and
I don't know German.

John K Clark




>
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