[ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Keith Henson via extropy-chat
Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2020 9:13 PM
Cc: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>; ExI chat list
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology

On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 9:13 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> Ja!  Dr. Stock was out here a few years ago doing a lecture and Stanford.
> We went to lunch together, he and I instantly got along.  I didn't 
> even know about his writings on the UK and intentional selection.

>...Got a pointer?

Do you mean for the event?  I wrote in my log that it happened on 23 March
2013, but I remember what I was doing right then and I was up to my eyeballs
in other concerns, so I didn't say much about it in my records.  It was a
transhumanist event up at Stanford.  Natasha was there: she and Max stayed
at my place, but we didn't have a local transhumanist party because they
only had the short time to stay and I was busy as all hell right then.


> I did the AncestryDNA kit and found that I have mostly English 
> ancestry, and all of them had gotten out before 1800 when that shift 
> took place, so I have all those selected-breeding genes for wealth 
> building.  I was bred for it, like a greyhound, born to run or a husky,
born to pull a sled.

>...If you are not being obtuse for humor, then you have a serious
misunderstanding of population selection.  It would take an equal amount of
time with serious selection pressure to return the UK population to
something close to the pre-selected state...

Keith you hit upon something important.  The limeys set us up for greatness:
they got the industrial revolution going in England with the coal power and
the this and the that, but there isn't much land on those islands out there
west of Europe, so a bunch of us bred-for-wealth-building English lads came
over to the colonies in about the 1700s where there was this big old
pristine continent in desperate need of industrialization and young men
seeking to make buttloads of money, these including all of my direct
ancestors, and I would just be letting them down if I failed to carry on the
tradish, ja?

>> Oh man, there just hasta be some way I can make a buttload of money 
> from this.

>...You did.  Keith
_______________________________________________

Well, OK sure there is that, but your idea really has my wheels spinning.  I
think you are onto something important, something which has a lotta
explanatory power.

For instance, let me just offer a vague outline.  The notion of collecting a
pile of assets is universal but there are different mindsets that appear to
be cultural.  Consider the extremes: the understated style of the young
wealth-building English-ancestor guy.  You and I met at least one at a
cryonics event (I think you were there) over at the Tied House in Palo Alto
about 15 yrs ago and I don't even remember his name, but he was one of the
local billllionehs.  He was looking for viable investments and had a passing
interest in cryonics, but the point was he looked and acted just like
everyone else.  He and I met and visited just like he was nobody.  I didn't
even know he was a software skerjillionaire until someone else told me after
the fact.  Contrast that with the rap culture hip-hop star millionaire, the
style: jewelry, outrageous cars and so on.  Right up the hill in sight of my
house is an enormous estate built by one of them, MC Hammer.  He went broke
because he overdid everything, and doesn't live there now, but everything
there is so overstated, it is practically a museum.  

Hey, that gives me an idea: get a bunch of investors together, buy the
Hammer estate, put a whole bunch of rap crap in there, make it a hip hop
museum analogous to the excellent Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland Ohio,
hire someone else to actually run the joint because I can't stand rap, make
a ton of money.

It isn't clear if that observation goes anywhere near Stock's theory, but I
have some thinking to do on that.

spike