From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 1 01:15:19 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2020 18:15:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Japanese mystery: why so few COVID cases? In-Reply-To: <01d301d64f33$ad076e00$07164a00$@rainier66.com> References: <019f01d64e50$84a62700$8df27500$@rainier66.com> <01e201d64e59$2c665c50$853314f0$@rainier66.com> <021701d64e60$baeeafc0$30cc0f40$@rainier66.com> <005801d64e77$caa516e0$5fef44a0$@rainier66.com> <006401d64e78$a43a8930$ecaf9b90$@rainier66.com> <006101d64edd$f0b6f770$d224e650$@rainier66.com> <00b001d64eee$88ebdc30$9ac39490$@rainier66.com> <00f101d64ef9$1076c250$316446f0$@rainier66.com> <015f01d64f17$fc7c3950$f574abf0$@rainier66.com> <01d301d64f33$ad076e00$07164a00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <023c01d64f45$164cadb0$42e60910$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] The Japanese mystery: why so few COVID cases? From: extropy-chat > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat >>?For goodness sake Spike?Killing the COVID-19 virus is super easy and so is killing cancer cells, the hard part is to kill them without also killing or mutating human cells. John K Clark >?OK so here we go, no worries (or rather low worries)? we UV the covid at a low enough dose to destroy them, let their wrecked remains trigger the immune response in the remaining intact system?spike Further thinking, we can do even better. Leucocytes are bigger than RBCs and they flow differently from the red cells. The first minute or so of this video shows how they roll, both erythrocytes and leukocytes, in comparison to the RBCs: https://youtu.be/TegfykbYdII WBCs are our friends, we don?t want to wreck those babies in a sick patient. We will need all of the white cells we can get for the task at hand. We have very advanced control systems, we have image recognition, we have UV pulse laser, controllable down to the microsecond level, or even lens-collimated UV (we used this for selective UV curing of epoxy in a satellite (and come to think of it, we have that for UV curing polymer fillings in our teeth.)) We have everything we need to make a modification to a dialysis machine that would UV pulse laser the RBCs and leave the white cells un-UVed. We would need to create a manifold to drop the blood into glass capillaries, perhaps add some plasma to make everything flow smoothly, UV the flow as it passes, centrifuge out the excess plasma for reuse (if that is necessary at all (it might not be (I don?t know that much about dialysis machines))) then drop the UV-exposed blood back into the patient. Alternative, go ahead and UV all the blood cells in a low-cost variation, hope the bone marrow can keep up with the job of making up for the wrecked leucocytes. This might work if the patient is young and vigorous. Another alternative (of course I would think of this one being a registered marrow donor): create a temporary marrow insertion, possibly even from an imperfectly matched donor, let that donated marrow produce white cells, remove donated marrow as soon as the patient?s crisis passes, before patient?s immune system recognizes the benevolent foreign marrow. Theory: if the destroyed virus cells go back into the patient, the unharmed leucocytes find them and do what leucocytes do so very well, patient recovers. >From what I can find, the reason we don?t have UV treatment yet is not that it slays the patient or increases the risk of cancer but rather we don?t know much about the efficacy of the therapy, and of course it would cost a lot and be pain in the ass. But dialysis patients already have the costs and the pain, and if a person with bad kidneys gets covid there is already a high risk for the old Adios Amigo anyway, so we can justify these longshot kinds of ideas. Then if it works on dialysis patients, it will work even better on covid patients with good kidneys. I don?t see why this should be such a controversial idea. If I had covid right now I will be willing to let the medics fire it up and try it on me. Wouldn?t you? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 01:33:15 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2020 20:33:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Japanese mystery: why so few COVID cases? In-Reply-To: <023c01d64f45$164cadb0$42e60910$@rainier66.com> References: <019f01d64e50$84a62700$8df27500$@rainier66.com> <01e201d64e59$2c665c50$853314f0$@rainier66.com> <021701d64e60$baeeafc0$30cc0f40$@rainier66.com> <005801d64e77$caa516e0$5fef44a0$@rainier66.com> <006401d64e78$a43a8930$ecaf9b90$@rainier66.com> <006101d64edd$f0b6f770$d224e650$@rainier66.com> <00b001d64eee$88ebdc30$9ac39490$@rainier66.com> <00f101d64ef9$1076c250$316446f0$@rainier66.com> <015f01d64f17$fc7c3950$f574abf0$@rainier66.com> <01d301d64f33$ad076e00$07164a00$@rainier66.com> <023c01d64f45$164cadb0$42e60910$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Wouldn't the ideal situation be that the patient gets white blood cells injected? In the future I assume that they will be able to make anything. bill w On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 8:18 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > *Subject:* RE: [ExI] The Japanese mystery: why so few COVID cases? > > > > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > > > > >>?For goodness sake Spike?Killing the COVID-19 virus is super easy and > so is killing cancer cells, the hard part is to kill them without also > killing or mutating human cells. John K Clark > > > > > > >?OK so here we go, no worries (or rather low worries)? we UV the covid at > a low enough dose to destroy them, let their wrecked remains trigger the > immune response in the remaining intact system?spike > > > > > > Further thinking, we can do even better. > > > > Leucocytes are bigger than RBCs and they flow differently from the red > cells. The first minute or so of this video shows how they roll, both > erythrocytes and leukocytes, in comparison to the RBCs: > > > > https://youtu.be/TegfykbYdII > > > > WBCs are our friends, we don?t want to wreck those babies in a sick > patient. We will need all of the white cells we can get for the task at > hand. > > > > We have very advanced control systems, we have image recognition, we have > UV pulse laser, controllable down to the microsecond level, or even > lens-collimated UV (we used this for selective UV curing of epoxy in a > satellite (and come to think of it, we have that for UV curing polymer > fillings in our teeth.)) We have everything we need to make a modification > to a dialysis machine that would UV pulse laser the RBCs and leave the > white cells un-UVed. We would need to create a manifold to drop the blood > into glass capillaries, perhaps add some plasma to make everything flow > smoothly, UV the flow as it passes, centrifuge out the excess plasma for > reuse (if that is necessary at all (it might not be (I don?t know that much > about dialysis machines))) then drop the UV-exposed blood back into the > patient. > > > > Alternative, go ahead and UV all the blood cells in a low-cost variation, > hope the bone marrow can keep up with the job of making up for the wrecked > leucocytes. This might work if the patient is young and vigorous. > > > > Another alternative (of course I would think of this one being a > registered marrow donor): create a temporary marrow insertion, possibly > even from an imperfectly matched donor, let that donated marrow produce > white cells, remove donated marrow as soon as the patient?s crisis passes, > before patient?s immune system recognizes the benevolent foreign marrow. > > > > Theory: if the destroyed virus cells go back into the patient, the > unharmed leucocytes find them and do what leucocytes do so very well, > patient recovers. > > > > From what I can find, the reason we don?t have UV treatment yet is not > that it slays the patient or increases the risk of cancer but rather we > don?t know much about the efficacy of the therapy, and of course it would > cost a lot and be pain in the ass. But dialysis patients already have the > costs and the pain, and if a person with bad kidneys gets covid there is > already a high risk for the old Adios Amigo anyway, so we can justify these > longshot kinds of ideas. Then if it works on dialysis patients, it will > work even better on covid patients with good kidneys. > > > > I don?t see why this should be such a controversial idea. If I had covid > right now I will be willing to let the medics fire it up and try it on me. > Wouldn?t you? > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 1 01:53:30 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2020 18:53:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bad news for california Message-ID: <028b01d64f4a$6bc4c480$434e4d80$@rainier66.com> New data comes in about 4 pm every day. We just heard of a bad setback for the old good guys on the west coast: https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/ Of course there is the usual useless finger-pointing: protests, picnics, the beaches, the bars, but regardless, we had a partial re-opening last week and now this. The consequences are easy enough to foresee. The governor has already said we can?t shut down the entire California economy: the budget shortfall is too great. So now? we get more cases. We are out of options here. Damn. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 12945 bytes Desc: not available URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 12:28:00 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 08:28:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The Japanese mystery: why so few COVID cases? In-Reply-To: <01d301d64f33$ad076e00$07164a00$@rainier66.com> References: <019f01d64e50$84a62700$8df27500$@rainier66.com> <01e201d64e59$2c665c50$853314f0$@rainier66.com> <021701d64e60$baeeafc0$30cc0f40$@rainier66.com> <005801d64e77$caa516e0$5fef44a0$@rainier66.com> <006401d64e78$a43a8930$ecaf9b90$@rainier66.com> <006101d64edd$f0b6f770$d224e650$@rainier66.com> <00b001d64eee$88ebdc30$9ac39490$@rainier66.com> <00f101d64ef9$1076c250$316446f0$@rainier66.com> <015f01d64f17$fc7c3950$f574abf0$@rainier66.com> <01d301d64f33$ad076e00$07164a00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 7:13 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> Lymphocytes cannot divide enough times such that a weird DNA damaging > UV dose would matter. * > I think it would matter because there are 5 different types of Lymphocytes and one of them, Memory B Cells, are long lived and remain in the bloodstream for decades, without them vaccines wouldn't work. There are billions of subtypes of B cells because they are very specialized. An Individual B Cell can only make one specific antibody, there might only be a few or even just one B Cell in the entire body that can recognize one particular virus, but if it does it can reproduce very quickly. Of course sometimes things go wrong because the virus can reproduce even faster than the B Cell can, and just as bad sometimes the B Cell reproduces too fast. Two other types of Lymphocytes are Regulatory B cells and Helper T cells and their job is to keep the immune system and inflammation under control, the concentration of such cells is quite low but without them we'd all be dead. Many if not most deaths from viruses are thought to be caused not by the virus itself, at least not directly, instead death comes because the immune system goes into hyper overdrive, it vastly overreacts and goes into a "Cytokine Storm" which results in massive Inflammation with the immune system turning into the enemy by ordering yet another type of Lymphocyte, Killer T Cells, to attack perfectly healthy human cells. Death by friendly fire. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 15:19:48 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 10:19:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] bad news for california In-Reply-To: <028b01d64f4a$6bc4c480$434e4d80$@rainier66.com> References: <028b01d64f4a$6bc4c480$434e4d80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Our numbers were +50% over our record high (3 days ago number) of new cases. The Mayors are threatening to sue the Governor for the ability to do city-wide restrictions. SR Ballard > On Jun 30, 2020, at 8:53 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > New data comes in about 4 pm every day. We just heard of a bad setback for the old good guys on the west coast: > > https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/ > > > > > Of course there is the usual useless finger-pointing: protests, picnics, the beaches, the bars, but regardless, we had a partial re-opening last week and now this. > > The consequences are easy enough to foresee. The governor has already said we can?t shut down the entire California economy: the budget shortfall is too great. > > So now? we get more cases. We are out of options here. > > Damn. > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 18:39:10 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 11:39:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ethics of cloning Message-ID: I have saved DNA from about a dozen interesting people who were not suspended (and one cat). I might not do it, but post-singularity, I want the option to raise clones of these people. I am well aware that a clone will not be the person, but to a considerable extent, personality comes from genes. They should be interesting people. The problem is that I am not sure of the ethics involved. I assume their DNA will be cleaned of the various problems that caused them to die early or caused them medical problems. Having children is a random crapshoot, you have no idea of what you will get, except that (on average) exceptional parents will have children that are closer to the norm (classical regression to the mean). With clones, you have a much better idea of what you are going to get. Still, the idea needs thinking about. Does a person who raises clones have more responsibility than those who have children? Keith From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 1 18:51:42 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 11:51:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ethics of cloning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007501d64fd8$a9c79d50$fd56d7f0$@rainier66.com> >... On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Ethics of cloning I have saved DNA from about a dozen interesting people who were not suspended (and one cat). ... Still, the idea needs thinking about. Does a person who raises clones have more responsibility than those who have children? Keith _______________________________________________ Keith excellent question. I find it comforting to know others are thinking about that which I have been pondering ever since learning that AncestryDNA and 23&Me may be retaining DNA samples. You have the DNA of some interesting people, well so do they, and we don't know who. But... if we have a sample, we can PCR that and figure out whose it is or was. I don't know on the ethical angle. spike From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 19:49:52 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 20:49:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ethics of cloning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 1 Jul 2020 at 19:44, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > > I have saved DNA from about a dozen interesting people who were not > suspended (and one cat). > > I might not do it, but post-singularity, I want the option to raise > clones of these people. I am well aware that a clone will not be the > person, but to a considerable extent, personality comes from genes. > They should be interesting people. > > The problem is that I am not sure of the ethics involved. I assume > their DNA will be cleaned of the various problems that caused them to > die early or caused them medical problems. > > Having children is a random crapshoot, you have no idea of what you > will get, except that (on average) exceptional parents will have > children that are closer to the norm (classical regression to the > mean). With clones, you have a much better idea of what you are going > to get. > > Still, the idea needs thinking about. Does a person who raises clones > have more responsibility than those who have children? > > Keith > _______________________________________________ Anything with 'ethics' involved is opening a can of worms, and human cloning is no exception. You are suggesting doing human cloning post-singularity, so you don't have to worry about the ethics until after the singularity arrives. All the current ethical, technical and legal problems apply to concerns about people doing human cloning *now*. After the singularity, ethics (like everything else) will be very different. DNA will be manipulated and improved so that present-time DNA will be regarded as quaint and old-fashioned, like a Ford Model T. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 20:20:47 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 13:20:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ethics of cloning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 11:42 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Still, the idea needs thinking about. Does a person who raises clones > have more responsibility than those who have children? > No. You should if possible have the permission of those who the DNA is from, as the children are theirs too, but having children is generally best done with the consent of all (which is usually just 2) of the child's DNA donors. By what circumstance do you have the people's DNA in the first place? Non-humans are traditionally property. If some person owns that cat's DNA, you should get that person's permission, otherwise it's a found resource. No one's going to object. (It can safely be assumed that the cat, like basically all non-human animals if they were able to consent, would not object as this would result in children and no further harm to the cat.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 20:34:55 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 15:34:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle Message-ID: Here is one I ran across in an article on air conditioning. In ancient Egypt ice was made. How did they do it? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 20:51:11 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 13:51:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In large evaporative coolers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 1:36 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Here is one I ran across in an article on air conditioning. In ancient > Egypt ice was made. How did they do it? > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 21:53:25 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 17:53:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A new type of gravitational waves detector Message-ID: A new type of very compact gravitational wave detector has been proposed that's really cool, it would work in theory but would be very tricky to make. But If we can figure out how to engineer it a detector just 1 meter long would be as sensitive as the 4000 meter long LIGO detector; in fact it would be so sensitive it could detect the Frame Dragging which Einstein predicted the rotation of the earth would produce, and that's something even LIGO can't do. The idea is to take an artificial diamond of one 1/1000 of a millimeter across and put it into a quantum superposition, such an object is very small by human standards but it's large enough to be seen with a regular optical microscope, and that is enormous for the quantum world. The diamond would be absolutely perfect except for one flaw, one carbon atom in the lattice would be replaced by a single nitrogen atom. A microwave photon would then hit the nitrogen atom which, according to the weird laws of quantum mechanics, would both absorb and not absorb the photon. The nitrogen atom that absorbs the photon would jump into a "spin one state" and develop a magnetic field as a result, the atom that didn't absorb the photon would remain in a "spin zero state" and have no magnetism. Then by applying an external magnetic field it would be possible to separate the two atoms and the carbon lattices they are attached to by a distance as far as 1 meter. The external magnetic field would then be reversed which would bring the two superpositions back together again. The last step is to send another microwave photon at the nitrogen atom, it would be carefully tuned to change the shape of the superposition so that the crests and troughs of the spin-one state perfectly overlap and cancel out, while the crests of the spin-zero state overlap and reinforce each other. Thus, in the absence of outside interference at the end of all this a measurement of the electron would always find it in a spin-zero state. That is to say if no gravitational waves occurred at the time of separation the nitrogen atom will always be in the spin zero stay but if a gravitational wave occurred during the separation things would no longer perfectly overlap and a magnetic spin one state would be detected in the resulting data with the frequency of the gravitational wave. Although most of these steps have already been performed in the lab, or something close to it (recently a superposition of 10,000 atoms over a distance of half a meter has been achieved, but this micro diamond would contain about 10 billion atoms), nobody has ever done all these steps at the same time so it won't be easy. As one scientist put it, it's one thing to learn how to ride a bicycle and juggle, it's quite another to learn how to ride a bicycle while you're juggling. But if we can figure out how to do this it would be amazing, as Sougato Bosem the lead researcher on the project said "*The challenge is to get one of them working. If one of them works, it would be very easy to make several more*". Mesoscopic Interference for Metric and Curvature (MIMAC) & Gravitational Wave Detection John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 21:55:32 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 17:55:32 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Kites, maybe? I thought evaporative coolers in the desert could keep ice but not make it On Wed, Jul 1, 2020, 16:35 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Here is one I ran across in an article on air conditioning. In ancient > Egypt ice was made. How did they do it? > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 21:58:10 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 17:58:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mesoscopic Interference for Metric and Curvature(MIMAC) & Gravitational Wave Detection Message-ID: For some reason the link I sent didn't work I'll try again Mesoscopic Interference for Metric and Curvature(MIMAC) & Gravitational Wave Detection John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 23:35:34 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 18:35:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] out of school Message-ID: Some really bad statistics are reported on those who have been out of school for months. As expected, those who lack internet access to the school's programs are hurt the worst. Question: should basic internet be available to every household? Cost based on income. Some will get it free. Online learning, as Spike keeps preaching, is the future, or at least a big part of it in education. We will create even bigger gaps between the various minorities if we don't do this. Yeah, another government welfare program, I hear ya. But look at the statistics of the education achievements of those in prison. Pathetic, esp. re minorities. Prison costs run about $30K a year here per inmate. Some of them, of course, are just psychopaths and mentally retarded etc. But some would be able to get jobs if their education was better. We need school reform. We need prison reform. We need to change some laws about sentencing. Would you be in favor of internet welfare? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 1 23:59:20 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 16:59:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] out of school In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006b01d65003$a3e38810$ebaa9830$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2020 4:36 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: [ExI] out of school Some really bad statistics are reported on those who have been out of school for months. As expected, those who lack internet access to the school's programs are hurt the worst. Question: should basic internet be available to every household? Cost based on income. Some will get it free. Online learning, as Spike keeps preaching, is the future, or at least a big part of it in education. We will create even bigger gaps between the various minorities if we don't do this. Yeah, another government welfare program, I hear ya. But look at the statistics of the education achievements of those in prison. Pathetic, esp. re minorities. Prison costs run about $30K a year here per inmate. Some of them, of course, are just psychopaths and mentally retarded etc. But some would be able to get jobs if their education was better. We need school reform. We need prison reform. We need to change some laws about sentencing. Would you be in favor of internet welfare? bill w BillW, this is a most timely post, being as our local school board has formed multiple volunteer citizen committees to figure out how we are going to do school next year. I volunteered to be used in any capacity they wished, recognizing that there are some areas, such as mental health, in which I know nothing. Never heard of mental health. I was assigned to the tech tools group. We have set up free internet for students who have local school district accounts, and others can sign up to access that. It is to support our online learning program. The students can get free ChromeBooks loaned to them as well. If they have a place to charge a ChromeBook, they can go to school, as well as every person in the family. Of course I support that. I am also on the School Site Council, which meets regularly with the school leadership. At the last meeting the principal gave a report on how the last 3 months of school went: mixed results. Some students accomplished far more at home, but the principal was compelled to report that as many as 15% of the registered students had never logged on. Some of them might have been foreign nationals who fled the area. The principal went to the home addresses of the non-responders to see what he could do to encourage them to participate. I am personally acquainted with one family which has a strict rule: their children are allowed a maximum of one hour of screen time per day. More later, spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 00:21:16 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 10:21:16 +1000 Subject: [ExI] out of school In-Reply-To: <006b01d65003$a3e38810$ebaa9830$@rainier66.com> References: <006b01d65003$a3e38810$ebaa9830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 at 10:01, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 1, 2020 4:36 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace > *Subject:* [ExI] out of school > > > > Some really bad statistics are reported on those who have been out of > school for months. > > > > As expected, those who lack internet access to the school's programs are > hurt the worst. > > > > Question: should basic internet be available to every household? Cost > based on income. Some will get it free. Online learning, as Spike keeps > preaching, is the future, or at least a big part of it in education. We > will create even bigger gaps between the various minorities if we don't do > this. > > > > Yeah, another government welfare program, I hear ya. But look at the > statistics of the education achievements of those in prison. Pathetic, esp. > re minorities. Prison costs run about $30K a year here per inmate. Some > of them, of course, are just psychopaths and mentally retarded etc. But > some would be able to get jobs if their education was better. > > > > We need school reform. We need prison reform. We need to change some > laws about sentencing. > > > > Would you be in favor of internet welfare? > > > > bill w > > > > > > BillW, this is a most timely post, being as our local school board has > formed multiple volunteer citizen committees to figure out how we are going > to do school next year. I volunteered to be used in any capacity they > wished, recognizing that there are some areas, such as mental health, in > which I know nothing. Never heard of mental health. I was assigned to the > tech tools group. > > > > We have set up free internet for students who have local school district > accounts, and others can sign up to access that. It is to support our > online learning program. The students can get free ChromeBooks loaned to > them as well. If they have a place to charge a ChromeBook, they can go to > school, as well as every person in the family. > > > > Of course I support that. > > > > I am also on the School Site Council, which meets regularly with the > school leadership. At the last meeting the principal gave a report on how > the last 3 months of school went: mixed results. Some students > accomplished far more at home, but the principal was compelled to report > that as many as 15% of the registered students had never logged on. > > > > Some of them might have been foreign nationals who fled the area. The > principal went to the home addresses of the non-responders to see what he > could do to encourage them to participate. I am personally acquainted with > one family which has a strict rule: their children are allowed a maximum of > one hour of screen time per day. > > > > More later > There's no good evidence that "too much screen time" is harmful. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/07/too-much-screen-time-hurts-kids-where-is-evidence -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 2 00:38:09 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 17:38:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] out of school In-Reply-To: References: <006b01d65003$a3e38810$ebaa9830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00a101d65009$0f6344e0$2e29cea0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >?There's no good evidence that "too much screen time" is harmful. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/07/too-much-screen-time-hurts-kids-where-is-evidence -- Stathis Papaioannou Stathis, no good evidence of harm is an understatement. There is good evidence of no harm. If too much screen time is harmful, I would be blind and impotent by now. No, understatement, I would be dead by now. Still understatement. I would be not just dead, my lifeless remains would have decayed to a mound of disgusting goo, with maggots fleeing as fast as they could writhe away, vultures turning away in revulsion, retching and barfing at the repugnant mass of horrid decay. None of that stuff has happened at all. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 01:11:21 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 20:11:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] out of school In-Reply-To: <00a101d65009$0f6344e0$2e29cea0$@rainier66.com> References: <006b01d65003$a3e38810$ebaa9830$@rainier66.com> <00a101d65009$0f6344e0$2e29cea0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: English language problem: we say things like 'don't do too much of that'. There's got to be a better way: too much is by definition too much. So saying 'don't do too much' is really kind of an insult. As if someone would intentionally overdo something (written by a person who continuously overdoes everything). I can't seem to think of a better way, but I am sure that someone here will. bill w On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 7:40 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > > > >?There's no good evidence that "too much screen time" is harmful. > > > > > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/07/too-much-screen-time-hurts-kids-where-is-evidence > > > > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > > > Stathis, no good evidence of harm is an understatement. There is good > evidence of no harm. > > > > If too much screen time is harmful, I would be blind and impotent by now. > No, understatement, I would be dead by now. Still understatement. I would > be not just dead, my lifeless remains would have decayed to a mound of > disgusting goo, with maggots fleeing as fast as they could writhe away, > vultures turning away in revulsion, retching and barfing at the repugnant > mass of horrid decay. > > > > None of that stuff has happened at all. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 2 02:09:30 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 19:09:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] out of school In-Reply-To: References: <006b01d65003$a3e38810$ebaa9830$@rainier66.com> <00a101d65009$0f6344e0$2e29cea0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00c001d65015$d2b8a5a0$7829f0e0$@rainier66.com> >? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] out of school English language problem: we say things like 'don't do too much of that'. There's got to be a better way: too much is by definition too much. So saying 'don't do too much' is really kind of an insult. As if someone would intentionally overdo something (written by a person who continuously overdoes everything). I can't seem to think of a better way, but I am sure that someone here will. bill w Perhaps I overshot just a bit with the fleeing maggots and such. I do too much of that. If too much screen time is harmful, I would be a drooling idiot by now, which didn?t happen. I scarcely drool at all, or if so, only occasionally. Of course I am in favor of internet welfare, for that is a form of welfare which really does offer great value to both the individual and society. I don?t know what to do about the 15% of students who treat online school as an extended vacation. Suggestions welcome, for we have a committee on that too. I am not on that one, but I am here to help all of them. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 05:04:04 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 22:04:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ethics of cloning Message-ID: wrote: snip > You have the DNA of some interesting people, well so do they, and we don't know who. In some cases we do. Esther Dyson is on the board of 23andMe. It would surprise me if any of her family are missing. Others, like GK O'Neill and Tim Leary can probably be recovered medical samples. BillK wrote: > Anything with 'ethics' involved is opening a can of worms, and human cloning is no exception. > You are suggesting doing human cloning post-singularity, so you don't have to worry about the ethics until after the singularity arrives. All the current ethical, technical and legal problems apply to concerns about people doing human cloning *now*. The biggest problem is simply cost. A human clone is close enough to the state of the art that we could probably do it at a cost of around a billion dollars. A clone from recovered DNA would be harder. > After the singularity, ethics (like everything else) will be very different. You may be right, but I don't see how the details would work out. Any ideas? > DNA will be manipulated and improved so that present-time DNA will be regarded as quaint and old-fashioned, like a Ford Model T. That's possible. It's also possible people could abandon flesh entirely and upload. Or perhaps the species would split with some remaining like Hutterites I have written fiction about all these options the singularity would enable. But the chances are that I wildly missed what will really happen. Keith wrote: >> Still, the idea needs thinking about. Does a person who raises clones >> have more responsibility than those who have children? Adrian Tymes wrote: > No. You should if possible have the permission of those who the DNA is from, as the children are theirs too, but having children is generally best done with the consent of all (which is usually just 2) of the child's DNA donors. These people are 100% dead. Permission not possible. > By what circumstance do you have the people's DNA in the first place? Various. One of them is from a hairbrush. I have been collecting DNA samples for over 20 years. > Non-humans are traditionally property. If some person owns that cat's DNA, you should get that person's permission, It is from my daughter's cat. I had some interesting cats, but they died long before I realized that saving DNA had potential. Keith From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jul 2 09:02:02 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 10:02:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/07/2020 01:38, Adrian Tymes wrote: > In large evaporative coolers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l > > On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 1:36 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > wrote: > > Here is one I ran across in an article on air conditioning.? In > ancient Egypt ice was made.? How did they do it? > I don't know if evaporative cooling on its own could make ice, but it gets very cold at night in the desert, so maybe repeated exposure at night and insulation through the day would do it. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 12:46:14 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 07:46:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8E3B1BA5-D02F-4587-8934-FD461C1F5AF9@gmail.com> Ice will form by itself overnight in the desert. SR Ballard > On Jul 1, 2020, at 4:55 PM, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: > > Kites, maybe? I thought evaporative coolers in the desert could keep ice but not make it > >> On Wed, Jul 1, 2020, 16:35 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >> Here is one I ran across in an article on air conditioning. In ancient Egypt ice was made. How did they do it? >> >> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 14:22:23 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 09:22:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here is what the books says: Around sundown, Egyptian women placed water in shallow clay trays on a bed of straw. Rapid evaporation from the water surface and from the damp sides of the tray combined with the nocturnal drop in temperature to freeze the water - even though the temperature of the environment never fell near the freezing point. Sometimes only a thin film of ice formed on the surface, but under more favorable conditions of dryness and night cooling, the water froze into a solid slab of ice. bill w On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 4:04 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 02/07/2020 01:38, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > In large evaporative coolers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l > > On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 1:36 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Here is one I ran across in an article on air conditioning. In ancient >> Egypt ice was made. How did they do it? >> >> > I don't know if evaporative cooling on its own could make ice, but it gets > very cold at night in the desert, so maybe repeated exposure at night and > insulation through the day would do it. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 2 15:06:04 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 08:06:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <015601d65082$4ec32230$ec496690$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] puzzle Here is what the books says: Around sundown, Egyptian women placed water in shallow clay trays on a bed of straw. Rapid evaporation from the water surface and from the damp sides of the tray combined with the nocturnal drop in temperature to freeze the water - even though the temperature of the environment never fell near the freezing point. Sometimes only a thin film of ice formed on the surface, but under more favorable conditions of dryness and night cooling, the water froze into a solid slab of ice. bill w BillW, this was a matter of debate when I lived in the Southern California desert. We set up recording high-accuracy temperature measuring equipment, demonstrated that under certain conditions frost would form on the cars when the temperature never dropped below about 6C, which is a long ways from freezing, warmer than a typical refrigerator by a lot. If you think about it, that is amazing. It requires an air mass with sufficient moisture to hit the dew point, followed by a dryer air mass blowing in, freezing the dew. Our big debate is how the radiation played into it. I did the models and showed it has a big affect: when those conditions are met, it is always really clear skies, so the moisture radiates heat out into cold space in accordance with Planck?s law. You hafta take into account Bolzmann?s constant, do all the sophisticated stuff to predict the temperature of a surface particularly at night. In retrospect it shouldn?t be all that anti-intuitive. Many of us have stood near a good hot campfire on a cool evening, or an even better example is stood 50 meters out from a housefire: you feel the heat when a big flame gets going. Clearly that isn?t convection: the heated air goes up. You can feel a lot of heat when you can?t even smell smoke. Radiation is important. Air temperature is only good for a first order approximation. Thermodynamic equations are cool. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 2 21:46:16 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 14:46:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> I want to show you something you may never see again, for I have been an occasional visitor to Stanford Medical Center for 31 years and never saw it until yesterday. I estimate about 50 trips up there total in that time, using this parking structure to donate blood or when it is time to see a doctor. I went up there yesterday for my bi-annual eye appointment. This photo was taken right at the bottom of the ramp from the MAIN ENTRANCE to that structure for Stanford Med, no kidding the main entrance. Usually one takes the first available parking space, but often one doesn't even slow down here because there are never any available parking spaces this close to the entrance. You need to go down a level and even then good luck in finding even one space waaaaay the hell and gone in back. Yesterday, I went in, 0930 most of the spaces were open. So. I parked. Having never seen this in 31 years, I took this photo. OK then. I went in, discovered the hospital is mostly deserted. A few patients here and there. Nothing like the usual level, just extremely low crowds. I checked in about 20 minutes early, they took me right in because no one was waiting. They did their thing, my eyes are fine for another two years. This is Stanford Medical, always brimming with proles. Yesterday, no crowds anywhere. A thought occurred to me. Plenty of people, especially the older ones, need constant tweaking and adjusting to their medications, blood work, measurements, coaching by doctors and experts, tweaking and such. Both my father in law and mother, both 80, need to see doctors approximately as often as the moon is new. Both suddenly stopped doing that with the epidemic. Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear of catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor? How do we count them? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 23708 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 22:48:22 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 17:48:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: How many? Who knows. But, a LOT. We already see some indications of that from NYC. SR Ballard > On Jul 2, 2020, at 4:46 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > > > I want to show you something you may never see again, for I have been an occasional visitor to Stanford Medical Center for 31 years and never saw it until yesterday. I estimate about 50 trips up there total in that time, using this parking structure to donate blood or when it is time to see a doctor. I went up there yesterday for my bi-annual eye appointment. > > This photo was taken right at the bottom of the ramp from the MAIN ENTRANCE to that structure for Stanford Med, no kidding the main entrance. Usually one takes the first available parking space, but often one doesn?t even slow down here because there are never any available parking spaces this close to the entrance. You need to go down a level and even then good luck in finding even one space waaaaay the hell and gone in back. > > Yesterday, I went in, 0930 most of the spaces were open. So? I parked. Having never seen this in 31 years, I took this photo. > > OK then. I went in, discovered the hospital is mostly deserted. A few patients here and there. Nothing like the usual level, just extremely low crowds. I checked in about 20 minutes early, they took me right in because no one was waiting. They did their thing, my eyes are fine for another two years. > > This is Stanford Medical, always brimming with proles. Yesterday, no crowds anywhere. > > A thought occurred to me. Plenty of people, especially the older ones, need constant tweaking and adjusting to their medications, blood work, measurements, coaching by doctors and experts, tweaking and such. Both my father in law and mother, both 80, need to see doctors approximately as often as the moon is new. Both suddenly stopped doing that with the epidemic. > > Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear of catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor? How do we count them? > > spike > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 2 23:40:15 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 16:40:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001c01d650ca$23af8690$6b0e93b0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat >>? Plenty of people, especially the older ones, need constant tweaking and adjusting to their medications, blood work, measurements, coaching by doctors and experts, tweaking and such?Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear of catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor? How do we count them? spike >? How many? Who knows. But, a LOT. We already see some indications of that from NYC. SR Ballard _______________________________________________ Hi SR, in the USA, we counted patients who died WITH the virus as having died OF the virus. But the who fled from medical care are those who indirectly died OF the virus but not WITH the virus. If so, we didn?t overcount the covid death rate, we undercounted it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 00:36:44 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 17:36:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] getting some action quietly, was: RE: you'll never see this again Message-ID: <004301d650d2$07913780$16b3a680$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] you'll never see this again > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat >>>?Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear of catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor? How do we count them? spike >>? How many? Who knows. But, a LOT. We already see some indications of that from NYC. SR Ballard _______________________________________________ >?Hi SR, in the USA, we counted patients who died WITH the virus as having died OF the virus. But the who fled from medical care are those who indirectly died OF the virus but not WITH the virus. >?If so, we didn?t overcount the covid death rate, we undercounted it. >?spike I am hearing reliable rumors that the huge spike (no relation) in covid cases in California is being traced to bars. They re-opened just in the incubation period which would explain it. OK then, well, that would make sense, particularly in college town bars which are swingin? places (from what I hear (I went to college in a dry county.)) If it is about bars, this is good news in a way. Reasoning: states are pretending they have the authority to make people wear masks. They don?t, the Fed doesn?t, neither have the authority to make anyone wear one. On state property they do, which might apply to state colleges, but only if the bar is on the campus. States damn well do control with almost arbitrary authority liquor licenses. Bars owners are law-abiding sorts. I don?t know, but think about this: Crowded bars, lots of singles eager to get friendly, loud music, they need to get into each other?s faces and raise their voices. Of course that is going to spread the virus. Masks would probably help some I suppose, but what if? we could talk the bars into just turning off the damn music until the contagion has passed? Then the only question remains one which the college hipster crowd among us might know: without loud music, could collegians still effectively negotiate copulation? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 04:00:59 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:00:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again Message-ID: wrote: snip > Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear of catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor? How do we count them? The NEJM was discussing this in the issue out today. I don't think a URL will work, but I might be able to cut, paste, and email the article in the unlikely event someone wants to read it. It was a detailed description of a case of a woman with breast cancer who will not get needed surgery due to COVID-19 and what a video conference of doctors proposes as alternatives. After this is over, we can count the excess cancer deaths. They might well run higher than the direct deaths from the virus. Right now deaths are lagging behind cases. That's partly due to the old folks staying home and the young going off to super spreader parties. For John Clark, the next milestone will be when the number of dead exceeds the civil war casualties, something around 850,000. Given that 1.1 million was the bottom of one set of estimates, it seems fairly likely. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 04:25:45 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:25:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000101d650f2$05fe06d0$11fa1470$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2020 9:01 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Keith Henson Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again wrote: snip > Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear > of catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor? How do we count them? The NEJM was discussing this in the issue out today. I don't think a URL will work, but I might be able to cut, paste, and email the article in the unlikely event someone wants to read it. It was a detailed description of a case of a woman with breast cancer who will not get needed surgery due to COVID-19 and what a video conference of doctors proposes as alternatives. After this is over, we can count the excess cancer deaths. They might well run higher than the direct deaths from the virus. Right now deaths are lagging behind cases. That's partly due to the old folks staying home and the young going off to super spreader parties. For John Clark, the next milestone will be when the number of dead exceeds the civil war casualties, something around 850,000. Given that 1.1 million was the bottom of one set of estimates, it seems fairly likely. Keith _______________________________________________ Could be a lotta people are thinking of this simultaneously. Stanford recently opened back up for doctors to have their regular rotations. I accepted my eye doctor but turned down my regular annual on the following reason: sick people go to the hospital, and that is currently the only indoor activity I have (groceries are ordered online, I go over, they load them in the trunk.) I estimate the risk of catching covid at about 1% if I go, and risk of the big Adios at about 20% if I catch it, so about .002 sounds right. We could play Ideas Futures, you give me two bucks if live, I give you 1000 if I don't, OK good deal. If I were to lose my sight, I couldn't read the internet and then I would have no way of knowing about the latest conspiracy theory in the FBI, so my life would be degraded way beyond 0.2% so I went to my appointment. My regular doctor checks me for cancer, which she cannot do over the phone, so I refused the phone conference: I requested we wait until the pandemic passes or I do from other causes. That is what got me to thinking about it: I just went to an eye doctor but refused my regular doctor, because my perceived risk was somewhere above .002 for blindness but below .002 for anything my regular doctor is likely to find in an exam. Shrugs. I talk and I listen. Most people are not as data-driven as I am, so they go with wherever the adjectives, nouns and verbs their favorite news sources give them. As a consequence, I see a wide spectrum, from those who consider the risk negligible to those who are afraid to poke their noses out the door (not exaggerating on that last one.) I am somewhere in between, but focusing on the data available to me and on reason to some extent, I chose eye doctor but not regular doctor. I speculate many will choose no doctors until the thing blows over, even those on meds, including those whose prescriptions expire or change. The annual can't find all cancers but they are better than nothing. Some cancers which would otherwise be found in time surely will be missed if annuals are skipped. The most striking thing Keith: the crowd over and Stanford Med was about 10% the usual crowd for midmorning Wednesday. This causes me to think perhaps I am on the less cautious end of the spectrum, and didn't realize it. spike From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 04:39:45 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:39:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] getting some action quietly, was: RE: you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <004301d650d2$07913780$16b3a680$@rainier66.com> References: <004301d650d2$07913780$16b3a680$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000a01d650f3$fa15b550$ee411ff0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com >? Crowded bars, lots of singles eager to get friendly, loud music, they need to get into each other?s faces and raise their voices. Of course that is going to spread the virus. Masks would probably help some I suppose, but what if? we could talk the bars into just turning off the damn music until the contagion has passed? Then the only question remains one which the college hipster crowd among us might know: without loud music, could collegians still effectively negotiate copulation? spike OK cool I have an idea. Some things never change: young singles, at the peak of their drive and attractiveness, of course they are going to meet at the bars and negotiate copulation, human nature. OK then, we convince the bars to turn off the music so the negotiators need not get so close and need not raise their voices, good, step 1. Next? use those Apple AirPods which hang in the ears, let the bar patrons BlueTooth to each other, so that the swingles can negotiate at an even lower volume and lower risk than in a normal crowded room. Or? somehow affix a device to the jaw with a tape-like adhesive so that it picks up vibrations directly and BlueTooths the discussion to the person being seduced, so that they can negotiate very quietly. We could do point to point transmission by having a ring that controls the device: the participants touch rings, their voice transmitter receiver devices are connected, they are free to negotiate copulation, quietly and discretely, while still maintaining the festive atmosphere, for they ear devices can blast loud angry music directly to the user when he or she has no partner in communication at that moment. It would be the modern version of seduction. Doesn?t it sound so romantic? Sheesh I am so glad I am married, oh mercy. I would suck at being single today. I wasn?t even any good at it back in the olden days when at least I kinda understood the rules and liked the music better. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 07:30:43 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 02:30:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <001c01d650ca$23af8690$6b0e93b0$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <001c01d650ca$23af8690$6b0e93b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <773C8EFC-D28B-4BB9-8D1F-22254F31B155@gmail.com> Yes Spike, that?s exactly what I mean. I have never be in camp ?we?re overcounting?. SR Ballard > On Jul 2, 2020, at 6:40 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat > > >>? Plenty of people, especially the older ones, need constant tweaking and adjusting to their medications, blood work, measurements, coaching by doctors and experts, tweaking and such?Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear of catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor? How do we count them? > > spike > > >? How many? Who knows. But, a LOT. We already see some indications of that from NYC. > > SR Ballard > _______________________________________________ > > > Hi SR, in the USA, we counted patients who died WITH the virus as having died OF the virus. But the who fled from medical care are those who indirectly died OF the virus but not WITH the virus. > > If so, we didn?t overcount the covid death rate, we undercounted it. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 10:32:16 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 06:32:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 5:49 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear of > catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor? How do we count > them?* I guess we count them the same way every other country in the world counts them, the same way we count the number of people who would've died from medical malpractice if they went to the doctor for minor ailments. The way it says that just Florida alone with a population of only 21 million had 10,109 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday but China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and the entire European Union COMBINED with a population of 2.6 BILLION had only 6760 new cases. To half the world the USA is a laughing stock, the other half looks at the USA with pity as one would a sick helpless puppy. Too much winning John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 3 10:55:29 2020 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 10:55:29 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <498171681.3522256.1593773729929@mail.yahoo.com> Spike wrote:"Question please: how many will die, not from the virus but from fear of catching the virus convinces them to not see their doctor?? How do we count them?" Well Spike, I don't know how much data is available in your country, or how on the ball your statisticians and insurers are, but in the UK mortality figures are released by the Office of National Statistics. Our Institute and Faculty of Actuaries has a Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) which measures what the official statistics say about death and illness and how it affects insurance, so there are certainly people keeping track of the overall mortality effects of this. In the UK there's a big worry over how many people have had cancer treatment delayed from hospitals shutting all non-emergency work to reduce infection risk. The statistical models are not without controversy - I remember the arguments over the figures when the British Medical Journal published an article about deaths in Iraq following the US-led invasion and people argued endlessly over the methodology. Still, there are established methods for looking at population mortality figures and constructing estimates for what they would normally be. Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 11:00:38 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 07:00:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 12:05 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > * > Right now deaths are lagging behind cases. * Death is always a lagging indicator.... I mean.... what comes after death? * > For John Clark, the next milestone will be when the number of dead > exceeds the civil war casualties, something around 850,000. * Before that there is the milestone of 291,557 American combat deaths from World War 2, 405,399 if you include non-combat deaths. The virus has already killed more than every other American war in its 250 history, and it only started in March. > *> Given that 1.1 million was the bottom of one set of estimates, it seems > fairly likely.* > I hope you're wrong but I fear you're not. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 11:49:57 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 07:49:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] It's not that complicated, just wear a damn mask! Message-ID: Goldman Sachs, not exactly a bastion of far left airy fairy liberal thought, says that a national mandate to wear a virus protection mask could Increase the nation's GDP during this depression by 5% even if that declaration only increased the number of people who actually do wear a mask by 15%, and that amounts to a saving of about one trillion dollars. Forget about the number of lives saved we're talking about a trillion dollars here. That's trillion with a T. A National Mask Mandate Could Save The U.S. Economy $1 Trillion, Goldman Sachs Says But unfortunately that's not going to happen because some people insist they have a God given right to infect other people. As longtime Republican strategist Alex Castellanos said: *"Mask-wearing has become a totem, a secular religious symbol. Christians wear crosses, Muslims wear a hijab, and members of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior to everyone else."* John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 12:48:15 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 05:48:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <773C8EFC-D28B-4BB9-8D1F-22254F31B155@gmail.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <001c01d650ca$23af8690$6b0e93b0$@rainier66.com> <773C8EFC-D28B-4BB9-8D1F-22254F31B155@gmail.com> Message-ID: <006401d65138$38a53d60$a9efb820$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again >?Yes Spike, that?s exactly what I mean. I have never be in camp ?we?re overcounting?. SR Ballard Ja. Now I am seeing why it is that it is so difficult to make direct comparisons between covid rates and nations: they have different counting methods. If patients are fleeing from medical care here, they are doing likewise elsewhere for the same reason. Some nations such as the USA, have 50 separate jurisdictions all of which have their own rules, with the data being combined into one misleading pile. We have few levers government can pull in the US, but one of them is to shut down the bars, because states do hold a lot of arbitrary power over liquor licenses. We have pretty solid evidence those are super-spreaders, so? close em now. Society can go on without them, and if some go out of business, new ones will arise after the crisis. spike >>?.Hi SR, in the USA, we counted patients who died WITH the virus as having died OF the virus. But the who fled from medical care are those who indirectly died OF the virus but not WITH the virus. If so, we didn?t overcount the covid death rate, we undercounted it. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 13:21:20 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 06:21:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat >?To half the world the USA is a laughing stock, the other half looks at the USA with pity as one would a sick helpless puppy. John, if you perceive that half the world is laughing at US death, does half the world laugh at Africa? They have plenty of death there. Is that half of the world laughing at UK, France, Italy and Belgium? Are you? Their covid death rates are higher there than here, depending on how we count those who eschew medical care because of fear (how should those be counted?) Too much winning John K Clark Which state is that guy in the video the governor of? In half the world, decisions on how to handle the pandemic (and how to report the numbers) are made at the national level. In the US, that policy is controlled at the state level. New Jersey moved into first place yesterday, ahead of New York. Connecticut is third now, followed by Massachusetts. If covid responds to government decisions, their governors are incompetent bastards. All four of those states exceed the covid death rates in even hard-hit France, UK, Italy and Belgium. The states which handled the pandemic most effectively are Alaska, Montana and Wyoming, with those three jurisdictions having the lowest covid death rates in the world. Perhaps we should draft the governors of those states to run New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. On the other hand? it could be that the pandemic is much more a function of transportation infrastructure, housing infrastructure, tourism and (most obviously) population density. If we misattribute the causes of the pandemic to the wrong factors, we risk driving the death rate even higher. Attempting to leverage a crisis into an opportunity makes the crisis deeper. This one is a crisis which really should be let go to waste. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 13:30:18 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 08:30:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] word of the day Message-ID: Penitentiary - in effect if not in intention, the most misnamed thing of all time. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 13:37:48 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 09:37:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 9:23 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Which state is that guy in the video the governor of?* Why do you feel obligated to jump to the defense of that guy whenever there is any criticism of him? If he just said there should be a mandate that people wear a virus mask when in public, people would do it. Democratic governors want to do it anyway and obsequious Republican politicians (the only type of Republican politician that hasn't gone extinct) would piss on a spark plug if Trump ordered them to. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 13:38:27 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:38:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <006401d65138$38a53d60$a9efb820$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <001c01d650ca$23af8690$6b0e93b0$@rainier66.com> <773C8EFC-D28B-4BB9-8D1F-22254F31B155@gmail.com> <006401d65138$38a53d60$a9efb820$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 3 Jul 2020 at 13:50, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > We have few levers government can pull in the US, but one of them is to shut down the bars, because states do hold a lot of arbitrary power over liquor licenses. We have pretty solid evidence those are super-spreaders, so? close em now. Society can go on without them, and if some go out of business, new ones will arise after the crisis. > > spike > Tomorrow, 4th July, England is reopening all the bars! After months of abstinence it is expected that half the nation will be seriously inebriated by around 4 pm. Survivors will stagger to music and night club bars for the evening rave party. Masks very optional, as shouting over loud music will be required. Of course it is well-known that consuming large quantities of alcohol is very helpful in following complicated rules about social distancing, hand-washing, no hugging, etc. Either the virus has disappeared or the results will be very predictable. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 14:41:49 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 07:41:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 9:23 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >> ?Which state is that guy in the video the governor of? >?Why do you feel obligated to jump to the defense of that guy whenever there is any criticism of him? Because it misattributes the causes of the pandemic, which causes the pandemic to be worse. There isn?t that much the federal government can do here. By the way? I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS. Note however that you perceived it as a defense of POTUS. Do gaze deep within yourself at that observation please. >? If he just said there should be a mandate that people wear a virus mask when in public, people would do it? On the contrary, the POTUS has no authority to mandate wearing masks (Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.) The level of vitriol has grown so intense that if POTUS were to issue orders that all US citizens must wear masks in public, bitter haters would discard theirs, which would perhaps make the pandemic worse. The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks already. We don?t know how to pressure them into doing so, but the recent spike (no relation) in California cases is partly driven by the rallies and protests (we think.) >?Democratic governors want to do it anyway and obsequious Republican politicians (the only type of Republican politician that hasn't gone extinct) would piss on a spark plug if Trump ordered them to? John K Clark Ja, and that makes my point exactly. The virus has no political party. By trying to make the pandemic political, we risk making the pandemic worse. The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in this case (Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.) We can observe that all the hardest-hit jurisdictions (in the entire world) are Democrat-led US states and the lowest case jurisdictions (in the entire world) are Republican-led states, but to attribute that to a systematic difference in policy is dangerously misleading and ignores the obvious: the critical factor is not political party but rather population density and factors related to population density. As soon as you hear the name of a political party used in this context, it is an indication that data is not the policy driver, political considerations are the driver. I urge we focus on the data rather than the politics, reduce the problem rather than use it as a weapon. Each level of jurisdiction very much does have the authority to do some things. The federal government can stop all international flights, while recognizing that every nation has citizens abroad that must have some means of getting home. Reducing international tourism might help, but that too has enormous economic and social consequences, all of them negative. States can suspend all liquor licenses for consumption on-site. That looks like a good option to me. We can live without bars for a while. Suicide rates from loneliness and isolation might rise some, but it looks like a reasonable tradeoff, ja? Counties can shut down school districts, which they are doing in California for the most part. Cities can (perhaps, not sure on this one) stop subways, but that too has enormous consequences, for plenty of homeless are already using those as rolling bedrooms. They will come anyway even if the subway isn?t moving. If people cannot get to their jobs, death rates from other factors will likely go way up. The governor of California has made some interesting comments. He is enough of a business guy to recognize that just shuttering all ?non-essential? businesses is a cure that might be worse than the disease in the long run. Plenty of other governors have come to the same conclusion. Some businesses can just declare themselves essential, such as the local lawn services and gun shops did. Who gets to tell them they are not essential? Many of the lawn service workers are illegal immigrants, so they are not eligible for relief payments. Their families will starve if they shut down. So? on they went. As for the gun shops, you don?t even want to go there. (Well, I do want to go there, but I mean you don?t want to go there with the idea of making them shut down (because gun shop owners know the law (the legislature didn?t passed any new laws for covid (and the governor?s declaring a health-related state of emergency still doesn?t give him the authority to close a gun shop.)))) The California government is struggling with how the state is going to make up the enormous budget gap caused by what has already been done. It can borrow of course, but it is looking like a risky bet to me. Would you buy California bonds? Neither would I. The governor of California has urged everyone to wear masks, but he recognizes that the state legislature has passed no laws requiring them and are most unlikely to do so. Governors do not make law. Only legislatures can do that. The legislature has not and will not. The US congress has passed no laws on covid and will not. In my town, about half wear masks, perhaps slightly less than half, but the school district has said no one on campus without a mask. The school district does have the authority in that case, for it is the property owner. As soon as we recognize the pandemic is not a left-right issue, that covid doesn?t know or care what political party or what governor is in charge, we can focus on workable solutions. Otherwise we are looking for ways to leverage a crisis into an opportunity, which is really an opportunity to deepen the crisis. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 14:51:20 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 07:51:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <001c01d650ca$23af8690$6b0e93b0$@rainier66.com> <773C8EFC-D28B-4BB9-8D1F-22254F31B155@gmail.com> <006401d65138$38a53d60$a9efb820$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00ed01d65149$6a6191d0$3f24b570$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again On Fri, 3 Jul 2020 at 13:50, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > We have few levers government can pull in the US, but one of them is to shut down the bars, because states do hold a lot of arbitrary power over liquor licenses. We have pretty solid evidence those are super-spreaders, so? close em now. Society can go on without them, and if some go out of business, new ones will arise after the crisis. > > spike > Tomorrow, 4th July, England is reopening all the bars! After months of abstinence it is expected that half the nation will be seriously inebriated by around 4 pm. Survivors will stagger to music and night club bars for the evening rave party. Masks very optional, as shouting over loud music will be required. Of course it is well-known that consuming large quantities of alcohol is very helpful in following complicated rules about social distancing, hand-washing, no hugging, etc. Either the virus has disappeared or the results will be very predictable. BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, I understand 4 July is the official anniversary of a little misunderstanding the colonies had with His Majesty. {8-] I too fear reopening bars is a really bad idea, and I oppose this while recognizing that I am one who has no dog in that fight, for I do not patronize them. In the states, those liquor licenses are an area where the government is nearly dictatorial: there are rules that must be met at the state, county and city levels. As I understand it, if any one of those three levels of government choose to suspend an on-site license, they can do it. I am not speaking from experience for I have never been in a nightclub, but I am told by reliable sources that it is the ideal environment for spreading disease. On the other hand, on-site liquor sales are taxed at all three of those levels (plus the federal government) so all three (or four if we include the Fed) of those organizations have a vested interest in keeping them open. In the recent California case spike (no relation) we are seeing a lot more new cases in young healthy people which points to protest rallies and bars. We can shut down bars, but we cannot shut down protest rallies. Oy vey, mercy. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 15:54:26 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 10:54:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: ? If he just said there should be a mandate that people wear a virus mask when in public, people would do it?John On the contrary, the POTUS has no authority to mandate wearing masks spike I think John has an excellent idea. If POTUS said that there should be a mandate (and never mind that he can't issue one) for masks, then some of his followers would start doing it. Even better if he would start too, but you can't have everything. bill w On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 9:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again > > > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 9:23 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > *>> ?**Which state is that guy in the video the governor of?* > > > > >?Why do you feel obligated to jump to the defense of that guy whenever > there is any criticism of him? > > > > Because it misattributes the causes of the pandemic, which causes the > pandemic to be worse. There isn?t that much the federal government can do > here. > > > > By the way? I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS > has no jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS. Note however that > you perceived it as a defense of POTUS. Do gaze deep within yourself at > that observation please. > > > > >? If he just said there should be a mandate that people wear a virus mask > when in public, people would do it? > > > > On the contrary, the POTUS has no authority to mandate wearing masks (Bill > of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.) The level of vitriol has grown so intense > that if POTUS were to issue orders that all US citizens must wear masks in > public, bitter haters would discard theirs, which would perhaps make the > pandemic worse. > > > > The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks > already. We don?t know how to pressure them into doing so, but the recent > spike (no relation) in California cases is partly driven by the rallies and > protests (we think.) > > > > >?Democratic governors want to do it anyway and obsequious Republican > politicians (the only type of Republican politician that hasn't gone > extinct) would piss on a spark plug if Trump ordered them to? John K Clark > > > > Ja, and that makes my point exactly. The virus has no political party. > By trying to make the pandemic political, we risk making the pandemic > worse. The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a > governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in > this case (Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.) > > > > We can observe that all the hardest-hit jurisdictions (in the entire > world) are Democrat-led US states and the lowest case jurisdictions (in the > entire world) are Republican-led states, but to attribute that to a > systematic difference in policy is dangerously misleading and ignores the > obvious: the critical factor is not political party but rather population > density and factors related to population density. > > > > As soon as you hear the name of a political party used in this context, it > is an indication that data is not the policy driver, political > considerations are the driver. I urge we focus on the data rather than the > politics, reduce the problem rather than use it as a weapon. > > > > Each level of jurisdiction very much does have the authority to do some > things. The federal government can stop all international flights, while > recognizing that every nation has citizens abroad that must have some means > of getting home. Reducing international tourism might help, but that too > has enormous economic and social consequences, all of them negative. > > > > States can suspend all liquor licenses for consumption on-site. That > looks like a good option to me. We can live without bars for a while. > Suicide rates from loneliness and isolation might rise some, but it looks > like a reasonable tradeoff, ja? > > > > Counties can shut down school districts, which they are doing in > California for the most part. > > > > Cities can (perhaps, not sure on this one) stop subways, but that too has > enormous consequences, for plenty of homeless are already using those as > rolling bedrooms. They will come anyway even if the subway isn?t moving. > If people cannot get to their jobs, death rates from other factors will > likely go way up. > > > > The governor of California has made some interesting comments. He is > enough of a business guy to recognize that just shuttering all > ?non-essential? businesses is a cure that might be worse than the disease > in the long run. Plenty of other governors have come to the same > conclusion. Some businesses can just declare themselves essential, such as > the local lawn services and gun shops did. Who gets to tell them they are > not essential? > > > > Many of the lawn service workers are illegal immigrants, so they are not > eligible for relief payments. Their families will starve if they shut > down. So? on they went. As for the gun shops, you don?t even want to go > there. (Well, I do want to go there, but I mean you don?t want to go there > with the idea of making them shut down (because gun shop owners know the > law (the legislature didn?t passed any new laws for covid (and the > governor?s declaring a health-related state of emergency still doesn?t give > him the authority to close a gun shop.)))) > > > > The California government is struggling with how the state is going to > make up the enormous budget gap caused by what has already been done. It > can borrow of course, but it is looking like a risky bet to me. Would you > buy California bonds? Neither would I. > > > > The governor of California has urged everyone to wear masks, but he > recognizes that the state legislature has passed no laws requiring them and > are most unlikely to do so. Governors do not make law. Only legislatures > can do that. The legislature has not and will not. The US congress has > passed no laws on covid and will not. In my town, about half wear masks, > perhaps slightly less than half, but the school district has said no one on > campus without a mask. The school district does have the authority in that > case, for it is the property owner. > > > > As soon as we recognize the pandemic is not a left-right issue, that covid > doesn?t know or care what political party or what governor is in charge, we > can focus on workable solutions. Otherwise we are looking for ways to > leverage a crisis into an opportunity, which is really an opportunity to > deepen the crisis. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 16:18:53 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 09:18:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011e01d65155$a5127a90$ef376fb0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again >>>? If he just said there should be a mandate that people wear a virus mask when in public, people would do it?John >>?On the contrary, the POTUS has no authority to mandate wearing masks spike >?I think John has an excellent idea. If POTUS said that there should be a mandate (and never mind that he can't issue one) for masks, then some of his followers would start doing it. Even better if he would start too, but you can't have everything. bill w Ja. Apparently masks don?t do much if everyone is outdoors. This makes sense if we think thru the mechanics of viral transmission. Good chance it is analogous to odors. If someone at a picnic is devouring durian outdoors, particularly on a breezy day, one scarcely notices. Indoors, oy vey I don?t even want to be in the same house with it. The odor will make you barf. Tailanders claim it smells sweet to them. Mercy. If I carry the lesson over, I would think masks probably help for indoor activities, but probably don?t make much difference outdoors. So, I wear one any time I am indoors other than my house, put it on every time I cross a threshold going in. I am having a hard time imagining any legislature passing a law mandating masks, or even if they did, any judiciary would uphold it. In California we have long debated if the government can mandate that people wear clothing, and if so, are the requirements different for men and women, and if so, how are the terms ?men? and ?women? to be defined. This last one we don?t know. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 16:47:52 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 11:47:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <011e01d65155$a5127a90$ef376fb0$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <011e01d65155$a5127a90$ef376fb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <7AC5CC5A-9A50-40E3-AFD1-664AE158F8B0@gmail.com> My state, Texas, a ?red? state, has just mandated masks outdoors for everyone who lives in a county with more than 20 active cases. So basically everything except for west texas, if we?re not counting El Paso. With enough pressure, even the most Republican governors will do what it takes to get re-elected. They just have to be pushed. That?s politics as it currently is in the States, like it or not. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:18 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again > > >>>? If he just said there should be a mandate that people wear a virus mask when in public, people would do it?John > > >>?On the contrary, the POTUS has no authority to mandate wearing masks spike > > >?I think John has an excellent idea. If POTUS said that there should be a mandate (and never mind that he can't issue one) for masks, then some of his followers would start doing it. Even better if he would start too, but you can't have everything. bill w > > > > Ja. Apparently masks don?t do much if everyone is outdoors. This makes sense if we think thru the mechanics of viral transmission. Good chance it is analogous to odors. If someone at a picnic is devouring durian outdoors, particularly on a breezy day, one scarcely notices. Indoors, oy vey I don?t even want to be in the same house with it. The odor will make you barf. Tailanders claim it smells sweet to them. Mercy. > > If I carry the lesson over, I would think masks probably help for indoor activities, but probably don?t make much difference outdoors. So, I wear one any time I am indoors other than my house, put it on every time I cross a threshold going in. > > I am having a hard time imagining any legislature passing a law mandating masks, or even if they did, any judiciary would uphold it. In California we have long debated if the government can mandate that people wear clothing, and if so, are the requirements different for men and women, and if so, how are the terms ?men? and ?women? to be defined. This last one we don?t know. > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 16:49:56 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 11:49:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] word of the day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5E4F1B2D-EF0E-4E18-9A9C-70DC6666ECF4@gmail.com> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kruger/photos/2006/qpe.html We don?t use the penitentiary model of prisons in the US because it?s illegal. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 8:30 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Penitentiary - in effect if not in intention, the most misnamed thing of all time. > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 16:55:51 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 12:55:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no > jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS.* > You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty. The virus has outsmarted Trump at every turn, he even gave the virus a silly nickname (kung flu) because that strategy worked so well against his political opponents, but to his surprise this time it didn't work, the virus remained unflustered. So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head so he just throws up his hands and says there's nothing I can do so I don't want to talk or hear about it ever again, and then he goes out and plays golf or does what he's really good at, turning on Fox News and watching sycophants fawn over him. > > *The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks > already.* > It's true that not all of them wore masks and they should have, but the percentage was much higher than at the Trump rallies, and at least the BLM people were outdoors. > *> The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a > governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in > this case* And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: "*Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle they have before them**.*" > > *(Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.)* > If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed to do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States is a complete failure and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper. But I don't really think the constitution is worthless, I think the current POTUS is worthless. Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a federal government, but Trump is more interested in protecting statues of long dead American traitors. >* the pandemic is not a left-right issue,* > As long as Trump thinks wearing a virus protection mask is a political sign of personal dissatisfaction with him and as long as extreme right wing Republicans (the only type of Republican there is anymore) think that "*member's of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior to everyone else*" then like it or not the virus epidemic has very much become a left-right issue. And respect for the truth has also become a left-right issue. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 17:02:13 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 10:02:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <7AC5CC5A-9A50-40E3-AFD1-664AE158F8B0@gmail.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <011e01d65155$a5127a90$ef376fb0$@rainier66.com> <7AC5CC5A-9A50-40E3-AFD1-664AE158F8B0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <013701d6515b$b2de1160$189a3420$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again My state, Texas, a ?red? state, has just mandated masks outdoors for everyone who lives in a county with more than 20 active cases. So basically everything except for west texas, if we?re not counting El Paso. With enough pressure, even the most Republican governors will do what it takes to get re-elected. They just have to be pushed. That?s politics as it currently is in the States, like it or not. SR Ballard Hi SR, you as a citizen are not legally obligated to follow the governor?s orders. See Amendment 10, Bill of Rights. What the TX governor did is recommend or suggest the wearing of masks. Business owners may refuse to allow entry to those not wearing masks. The governor may not demand wearing masks, for the constitution does not reserve that right to state governors. There is a reason why I am watching these kinds of stories very carefully. It is astonishing to me when I hear how many Californians ask if there isn?t a law requiring me to wear a mask outdoors. I must remind them that only the state legislature can pass laws, and ours didn?t, nor did the Texas legislature. A crisis is not an opportunity for a government to seize powers it does not have. Orwell pointed out so very well in his classic Nineteen Eighty Four that if government can seize power during a crisis, it will arrange for a crisis and seize power. I love Texas. You Texans have the best food in the entire world. It must be illegal to have a restaurant with bad food there, for I never found one the whole time I was on business trips there. I discovered there is no need to ask colleagues for good restaurants: that?s the only kind you have there. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 17:12:51 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 12:12:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> I strenuously disagree that only the far right are the only members left in the Republican party. They?re just the loudest and they are growing, but they?re not the whole party. Surely even you know some ?not Trump, not Pence? Republicans? That?s like saying the only Democrats are Bernie diehards. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:55 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> > I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS. >> > > You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty. The virus has outsmarted Trump at every turn, he even gave the virus a silly nickname (kung flu) because that strategy worked so well against his political opponents, but to his surprise this time it didn't work, the virus remained unflustered. So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head so he just throws up his hands and says there's nothing I can do so I don't want to talk or hear about it ever again, and then he goes out and plays golf or does what he's really good at, turning on Fox News and watching sycophants fawn over him. > >> > The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks already. >> > > It's true that not all of them wore masks and they should have, but the percentage was much higher than at the Trump rallies, and at least the BLM people were outdoors. > >> > The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in this case > > And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: > > "Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle they have before them." > >> > (Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.) >> > > If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed to do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States is a complete failure and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper. But I don't really think the constitution is worthless, I think the current POTUS is worthless. Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a federal government, but Trump is more interested in protecting statues of long dead American traitors. > >> > the pandemic is not a left-right issue, > > As long as Trump thinks wearing a virus protection mask is a political sign of personal dissatisfaction with him and as long as extreme right wing Republicans (the only type of Republican there is anymore) think that "member's of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior to everyone else" then like it or not the virus epidemic has very much become a left-right issue. And respect for the truth has also become a left-right issue. > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 17:24:08 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:24:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> Message-ID: Most of the far right are disgusted with the Republican party. On Fri, Jul 3, 2020, 1:18 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I strenuously disagree that only the far right are the only members left > in the Republican party. They?re just the loudest and they are growing, but > they?re not the whole party. Surely even you know some ?not Trump, not > Pence? Republicans? > > That?s like saying the only Democrats are Bernie diehards. > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:55 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *> I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no >> jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS.* >> > > You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty. The virus has outsmarted > Trump at every turn, he even gave the virus a silly nickname (kung flu) > because that strategy worked so well against his political opponents, but > to his surprise this time it didn't work, the virus remained unflustered. > So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head so he just throws up > his hands and says there's nothing I can do so I don't want to talk or hear > about it ever again, and then he goes out and plays golf or does what he's > really good at, turning on Fox News and watching sycophants fawn over him. > > >> > *The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks >> already.* >> > > It's true that not all of them wore masks and they should have, but the > percentage was much higher than at the Trump rallies, and at least the BLM > people were outdoors. > > >> *> The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a >> governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in >> this case* > > > And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: > > "*Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- > the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and > air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when > I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle > they have before them**.*" > > >> > *(Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.)* >> > > If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal > government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic > as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed to > do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States is > a complete failure and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper. But I > don't really think the constitution is worthless, I think the current POTUS > is worthless. Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a > federal government, but Trump is more interested in protecting statues of > long dead American traitors. > > >* the pandemic is not a left-right issue,* >> > > As long as Trump thinks wearing a virus protection mask is a political sign > of personal dissatisfaction with him and as long as extreme right wing > Republicans (the only type of Republican there is anymore) think that "*member's > of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask > as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more > rational, and morally superior to everyone else*" then like it or not the > virus epidemic has very much become a left-right issue. And respect for the > truth has also become a left-right issue. > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 18:00:55 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 11:00:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >> I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS. >?You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty? POTUS has no jurisdiction in how states run their response to the crisis. >?The virus has outsmarted Trump at every turn? POTUS has no jurisdiction in how states run their response to the crisis. >? So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head? Irrelevant. POTUS has no jurisdiction in how states run their response to the crisis. >?so he just throws up his hands and says there's nothing I can do? There is nothing he can do. POTUS has no jurisdiction in this. To do something is to seize dictatorial powers. None of that is defense of anyone at the national level. >?And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: "Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle they have before them." Ja. Do you see the difference between a military attack by a foreign military and an attack by a virus? POTUS commands the military. POTUS can do that legally, but he military cannot shoot a virus. To do what it sounds like you expect would require POTUS to assume dictatorial powers, which POTUS cannot legally do. > (Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.) >?If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic? YES! JA! John, you are right on with that comment. The United States of America is a collection of state governments working together for the common defense and the other things. The Fed can restrict international travel, but really not a lot beyond that. It cannot dictate to the states how they will run their business. >? as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed to do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States is a complete failure? No it is a complete success. Some states have been a complete failure, and I would point to New York. >? and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper? On the contrary. It is a piece of paper which prevents the federal government from becoming a dictatorship. >? I think the current POTUS is worthless? Well then, aren?t you glad POTUS doesn?t run the show? >? Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a federal government? It does protect its citizens from foreign invaders. Virus protection is done at the state level, because states have a lot more resources available for raising funds than does the Federal government. >> the pandemic is not a left-right issue, >?As long as Trump thinks? And respect for the truth has also become a left-right issue. John K Clark It doesn?t matter what POTUS thinks, for he is not a governor, and has no jurisdiction in how states run their business. This is not a defense of anyone, it is our legal system. To seize dictatorial powers in response to a crisis is to seize dictatorial powers. Notice how I wrote all of that with no political content, none. Do ye likewise please. The pandemic is not an opportunity, it is a crisis. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:02:54 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:02:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <013701d6515b$b2de1160$189a3420$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <011e01d65155$a5127a90$ef376fb0$@rainier66.com> <7AC5CC5A-9A50-40E3-AFD1-664AE158F8B0@gmail.com> <013701d6515b$b2de1160$189a3420$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <3FBA5714-16B8-4539-A7EE-00544BB4D1A1@gmail.com> The governor maybe doesn?t have the ?right? but he will have the PoPo fine you $250, so that?s whatever. And uh, amandment 10 says, ?The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.? Soooo, I think that means the governor (you know, in charge of a State) can mandate masks because I don?t think the state is forbidden from making sure people don?t kill each other... no one ever seemed to think TB quarantine was unconstitutional. >The governor may not demand wearing masks, for the constitution does not reserve that right to state governors. No, it doesn?t. And it doesn?t have to. >The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, The federal government is not delegated the responsibility for masks. >nor prohibited by it to the States, States are not prohibited to order masks. >are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. So either the State can mandate masks, or individuals can. What?s the issue? Emergency declarations trump the actual laws passed by legislative bodies because these legislative bodies passed laws stating that was the case. So technically there are laws which allow the governor to mandate this by fiat. And he did. So here we are. If he should have that right of fiat is an entirely different question. Move to Texas, get fined, and take it to the Supreme Court if you find it unconstitutional. Otherwise the constitution is an empty piece of paper. Personally I find the US political situation to be unsalvageable. So I try not to worry about it and make myself ill. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 12:02 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again > > My state, Texas, a ?red? state, has just mandated masks outdoors for everyone who lives in a county with more than 20 active cases. So basically everything except for west texas, if we?re not counting El Paso. > > With enough pressure, even the most Republican governors will do what it takes to get re-elected. They just have to be pushed. That?s politics as it currently is in the States, like it or not. > > SR Ballard > > > > > > Hi SR, you as a citizen are not legally obligated to follow the governor?s orders. See Amendment 10, Bill of Rights. What the TX governor did is recommend or suggest the wearing of masks. Business owners may refuse to allow entry to those not wearing masks. The governor may not demand wearing masks, for the constitution does not reserve that right to state governors. > > There is a reason why I am watching these kinds of stories very carefully. It is astonishing to me when I hear how many Californians ask if there isn?t a law requiring me to wear a mask outdoors. I must remind them that only the state legislature can pass laws, and ours didn?t, nor did the Texas legislature. > > A crisis is not an opportunity for a government to seize powers it does not have. Orwell pointed out so very well in his classic Nineteen Eighty Four that if government can seize power during a crisis, it will arrange for a crisis and seize power. > > I love Texas. You Texans have the best food in the entire world. It must be illegal to have a restaurant with bad food there, for I never found one the whole time I was on business trips there. I discovered there is no need to ask colleagues for good restaurants: that?s the only kind you have there. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:04:42 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:04:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> Depends how far right we?re defining the far right as. Monarchists and Dominionists of course aren?t every going to be satisfied by any political party. Or fascists. Or incels who think every man should be assured a wife by the US government. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > > Most of the far right are disgusted with the Republican party. > >> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020, 1:18 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> I strenuously disagree that only the far right are the only members left in the Republican party. They?re just the loudest and they are growing, but they?re not the whole party. Surely even you know some ?not Trump, not Pence? Republicans? >> >> That?s like saying the only Democrats are Bernie diehards. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:55 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> >>>> > I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS. >>>> >>> >>> You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty. The virus has outsmarted Trump at every turn, he even gave the virus a silly nickname (kung flu) because that strategy worked so well against his political opponents, but to his surprise this time it didn't work, the virus remained unflustered. So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head so he just throws up his hands and says there's nothing I can do so I don't want to talk or hear about it ever again, and then he goes out and plays golf or does what he's really good at, turning on Fox News and watching sycophants fawn over him. >>> >>>> > The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks already. >>>> >>> >>> It's true that not all of them wore masks and they should have, but the percentage was much higher than at the Trump rallies, and at least the BLM people were outdoors. >>> >>>> > The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in this case >>> >>> And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: >>> >>> "Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle they have before them." >>> >>>> > (Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.) >>>> >>> >>> If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed to do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States is a complete failure and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper. But I don't really think the constitution is worthless, I think the current POTUS is worthless. Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a federal government, but Trump is more interested in protecting statues of long dead American traitors. >>> >>>> > the pandemic is not a left-right issue, >>> >>> As long as Trump thinks wearing a virus protection mask is a political sign of personal dissatisfaction with him and as long as extreme right wing Republicans (the only type of Republican there is anymore) think that "member's of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior to everyone else" then like it or not the virus epidemic has very much become a left-right issue. And respect for the truth has also become a left-right issue. >>> >>> John K Clark >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:06:17 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:06:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: How very wrong you are, Spike. Everything, everything, everything is political to a politician, and if it isn't, they make it so by spin doctors. bill w The pandemic is not an opportunity, it is a crisis. spike On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:03 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again > > > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > *>> ** I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no > jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS.* > > > > >?You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty? > > > > POTUS has no jurisdiction in how states run their response to the crisis. > > > > >?The virus has outsmarted Trump at every turn? > > > > POTUS has no jurisdiction in how states run their response to the crisis. > > > > >? So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head? > > > > Irrelevant. POTUS has no jurisdiction in how states run their response to > the crisis. > > > > >?so he just throws up his hands and says there's nothing I can do? > > > > There is nothing he can do. POTUS has no jurisdiction in this. To do > something is to seize dictatorial powers. > > > > None of that is defense of anyone at the national level. > > > > > > >?And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: > > > > "*Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- > the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and > air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when > I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle > they have before them.*" > > > > Ja. Do you see the difference between a military attack by a foreign > military and an attack by a virus? POTUS commands the military. POTUS can > do that legally, but he military cannot shoot a virus. To do what it > sounds like you expect would require POTUS to assume dictatorial powers, > which POTUS cannot legally do. > > > > > > > *(Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.)* > > > > >?If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal > government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic? > > > > YES! JA! John, you are right on with that comment. The United States of > America is a collection of state governments working together for the > common defense and the other things. The Fed can restrict international > travel, but really not a lot beyond that. It cannot dictate to the states > how they will run their business. > > > > >? as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed > to do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States > is a complete failure? > > > > No it is a complete success. Some states have been a complete failure, > and I would point to New York. > > > > >? and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper? > > > > On the contrary. It is a piece of paper which prevents the federal > government from becoming a dictatorship. > > > > >? I think the current POTUS is worthless? > > > > Well then, aren?t you glad POTUS doesn?t run the show? > > > > >? Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a federal > government? > > > > It does protect its citizens from foreign invaders. Virus protection is > done at the state level, because states have a lot more resources available > for raising funds than does the Federal government. > > > > > > >>* the pandemic is not a left-right issue,* > > > > >?As long as Trump thinks? And respect for the truth has also become a > left-right issue. John K Clark > > > > It doesn?t matter what POTUS thinks, for he is not a governor, and has no > jurisdiction in how states run their business. This is not a defense of > anyone, it is our legal system. To seize dictatorial powers in response to > a crisis is to seize dictatorial powers. > > > > Notice how I wrote all of that with no political content, none. Do ye > likewise please. > > > > The pandemic is not an opportunity, it is a crisis. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:12:36 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:12:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <3FBA5714-16B8-4539-A7EE-00544BB4D1A1@gmail.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <011e01d65155$a5127a90$ef376fb0$@rainier66.com> <7AC5CC5A-9A50-40E3-AFD1-664AE158F8B0@gmail.com> <013701d6515b$b2de1160$189a3420$@rainier66.com> <3FBA5714-16B8-4539-A7EE-00544BB4D1A1@gmail.com> Message-ID: It's hard to see the light at midnight, isn't it? bill w Personally I find the US political situation to be unsalvageable. So I try not to worry about it and make myself ill. SR Ballard On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:10 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The governor maybe doesn?t have the ?right? but he will have the PoPo fine > you $250, so that?s whatever. > > And uh, amandment 10 says, ?The powers not delegated to the United States > by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to > the States respectively, or to the people.? > > Soooo, I think that means the governor (you know, in charge of a State) > can mandate masks because I don?t think the state is forbidden from making > sure people don?t kill each other... no one ever seemed to think TB > quarantine was unconstitutional. > > >The governor may not demand wearing masks, for the constitution does not > reserve that right to state governors. > > No, it doesn?t. And it doesn?t have to. > > >The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, > > The federal government is not delegated the responsibility for masks. > > >nor prohibited by it to the States, > > States are not prohibited to order masks. > > >are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. > > So either the State can mandate masks, or individuals can. What?s the > issue? > > Emergency declarations trump the actual laws passed by legislative bodies > because these legislative bodies passed laws stating that was the case. So > technically there are laws which allow the governor to mandate this by > fiat. And he did. So here we are. > > If he should have that right of fiat is an entirely different question. > Move to Texas, get fined, and take it to the Supreme Court if you find it > unconstitutional. Otherwise the constitution is an empty piece of paper. > > Personally I find the US political situation to be unsalvageable. So I try > not to worry about it and make myself ill. > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 3, 2020, at 12:02 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *SR Ballard via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again > > > > My state, Texas, a ?red? state, has just mandated masks outdoors for > everyone who lives in a county with more than 20 active cases. So basically > everything except for west texas, if we?re not counting El Paso. > > > > With enough pressure, even the most Republican governors will do what it > takes to get re-elected. They just have to be pushed. That?s politics as it > currently is in the States, like it or not. > > SR Ballard > > > > > > Hi SR, you as a citizen are not legally obligated to follow the governor?s > orders. See Amendment 10, Bill of Rights. What the TX governor did is > recommend or suggest the wearing of masks. Business owners may refuse to > allow entry to those not wearing masks. The governor may not demand > wearing masks, for the constitution does not reserve that right to state > governors. > > There is a reason why I am watching these kinds of stories very > carefully. It is astonishing to me when I hear how many Californians ask > if there isn?t a law requiring me to wear a mask outdoors. I must remind > them that only the state legislature can pass laws, and ours didn?t, nor > did the Texas legislature. > > A crisis is not an opportunity for a government to seize powers it does > not have. Orwell pointed out so very well in his classic Nineteen Eighty > Four that if government can seize power during a crisis, it will arrange > for a crisis and seize power. > > I love Texas. You Texans have the best food in the entire world. It must > be illegal to have a restaurant with bad food there, for I never found one > the whole time I was on business trips there. I discovered there is no > need to ask colleagues for good restaurants: that?s the only kind you have > there. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:13:00 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:13:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:20 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> I strenuously disagree that only the far right are the only members left > in the Republican party.* > I should've said lunatic far right Republican *politicians* that still hold office are the only sort that still exist, I would estimate 10% of the rank-and-file Republicans are still sane, maybe 15%. I was a Republican myself for most of my life, but I gave up on them about six years ago. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:16:58 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:16:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] word of the day In-Reply-To: <5E4F1B2D-EF0E-4E18-9A9C-70DC6666ECF4@gmail.com> References: <5E4F1B2D-EF0E-4E18-9A9C-70DC6666ECF4@gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks, SR, that was interesting. Now if we can just get rid of all solitary confinement for any crime. Psych studies show that it will drive most people nuts in a short time. Cruel and unusual. bill w On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 11:56 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kruger/photos/2006/qpe.html > > We don?t use the penitentiary model of prisons in the US because it?s > illegal. > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 3, 2020, at 8:30 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Penitentiary - in effect if not in intention, the most misnamed thing of > all time. > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:19:33 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:19:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> Message-ID: The GOP is pretty much nothing but RINOs like the prized Utah Gelding at this point, and are just doing their best to line their pockets while the country burns... In many ways, there is only one party rule here despite the alleged policy differences between the two. On Fri, Jul 3, 2020, 2:14 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Depends how far right we?re defining the far right as. Monarchists and > Dominionists of course aren?t every going to be satisfied by any political > party. Or fascists. Or incels who think every man should be assured a wife > by the US government. > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 3, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Most of the far right are disgusted with the Republican party. > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020, 1:18 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I strenuously disagree that only the far right are the only members left >> in the Republican party. They?re just the loudest and they are growing, but >> they?re not the whole party. Surely even you know some ?not Trump, not >> Pence? Republicans? >> >> That?s like saying the only Democrats are Bernie diehards. >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:55 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> *> I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no >>> jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS.* >>> >> >> You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty. The virus has outsmarted >> Trump at every turn, he even gave the virus a silly nickname (kung flu) >> because that strategy worked so well against his political opponents, but >> to his surprise this time it didn't work, the virus remained unflustered. >> So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head so he just throws up >> his hands and says there's nothing I can do so I don't want to talk or hear >> about it ever again, and then he goes out and plays golf or does what he's >> really good at, turning on Fox News and watching sycophants fawn over him. >> >> >>> > *The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks >>> already.* >>> >> >> It's true that not all of them wore masks and they should have, but the >> percentage was much higher than at the Trump rallies, and at least the BLM >> people were outdoors. >> >> >>> *> The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a >>> governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in >>> this case* >> >> >> And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: >> >> "*Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- >> the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and >> air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when >> I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle >> they have before them**.*" >> >> >>> > *(Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.)* >>> >> >> If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal >> government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic >> as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed >> to do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States >> is a complete failure and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper. But I >> don't really think the constitution is worthless, I think the current POTUS >> is worthless. Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a >> federal government, but Trump is more interested in protecting statues of >> long dead American traitors. >> >> >* the pandemic is not a left-right issue,* >>> >> >> As long as Trump thinks wearing a virus protection mask is a political sign >> of personal dissatisfaction with him and as long as extreme right wing >> Republicans (the only type of Republican there is anymore) think that "*member's >> of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask >> as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more >> rational, and morally superior to everyone else*" then like it or not >> the virus epidemic has very much become a left-right issue. And respect for >> the truth has also become a left-right issue. >> >> John K Clark >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:19:58 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:19:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> Message-ID: We'll just have to be satisfied that those people you mention are small minorities. Me? I would be happy with a do-nothing know-nothing president. Color, gender, age, orientation all irrelevant. bill w On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:15 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Depends how far right we?re defining the far right as. Monarchists and > Dominionists of course aren?t every going to be satisfied by any political > party. Or fascists. Or incels who think every man should be assured a wife > by the US government. > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 3, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Most of the far right are disgusted with the Republican party. > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020, 1:18 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I strenuously disagree that only the far right are the only members left >> in the Republican party. They?re just the loudest and they are growing, but >> they?re not the whole party. Surely even you know some ?not Trump, not >> Pence? Republicans? >> >> That?s like saying the only Democrats are Bernie diehards. >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:55 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> *> I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no >>> jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS.* >>> >> >> You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty. The virus has outsmarted >> Trump at every turn, he even gave the virus a silly nickname (kung flu) >> because that strategy worked so well against his political opponents, but >> to his surprise this time it didn't work, the virus remained unflustered. >> So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head so he just throws up >> his hands and says there's nothing I can do so I don't want to talk or hear >> about it ever again, and then he goes out and plays golf or does what he's >> really good at, turning on Fox News and watching sycophants fawn over him. >> >> >>> > *The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks >>> already.* >>> >> >> It's true that not all of them wore masks and they should have, but the >> percentage was much higher than at the Trump rallies, and at least the BLM >> people were outdoors. >> >> >>> *> The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a >>> governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in >>> this case* >> >> >> And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: >> >> "*Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- >> the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and >> air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when >> I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle >> they have before them**.*" >> >> >>> > *(Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.)* >>> >> >> If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal >> government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic >> as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed >> to do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States >> is a complete failure and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper. But I >> don't really think the constitution is worthless, I think the current POTUS >> is worthless. Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a >> federal government, but Trump is more interested in protecting statues of >> long dead American traitors. >> >> >* the pandemic is not a left-right issue,* >>> >> >> As long as Trump thinks wearing a virus protection mask is a political sign >> of personal dissatisfaction with him and as long as extreme right wing >> Republicans (the only type of Republican there is anymore) think that "*member's >> of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask >> as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more >> rational, and morally superior to everyone else*" then like it or not >> the virus epidemic has very much become a left-right issue. And respect for >> the truth has also become a left-right issue. >> >> John K Clark >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robot at ultimax.com Fri Jul 3 18:05:48 2020 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2020 14:05:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: no, the next milestone is WWII. The WWII Memorial on the Wash. Mall says 384,000 military dead, IIRC, but Wiki says American deaths attributable to the war were 419,400. The curves are diverging so wildly that I dare not hazard a guess when we'll hit that milestone. The Civil War (aka The War of Northern Aggression aka The Late Unpleasantness) comes after that. K3 On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:00:59 -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > For John Clark, the next milestone will be when the number of dead > exceeds the civil war casualties, something around 850,000. Given > that 1.1 million was the bottom of one set of estimates, it seems > fairly likely. From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 18:42:54 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 11:42:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <3FBA5714-16B8-4539-A7EE-00544BB4D1A1@gmail.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <011e01d65155$a5127a90$ef376fb0$@rainier66.com> <7AC5CC5A-9A50-40E3-AFD1-664AE158F8B0@gmail.com> <013701d6515b$b2de1160$189a3420$@rainier66.com> <3FBA5714-16B8-4539-A7EE-00544BB4D1A1@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01da01d65169$c3e32eb0$4ba98c10$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again >?The governor maybe doesn?t have the ?right? but he will have the PoPo fine you $250, so that?s whatever? This has been a major point of contention, for some local constabularies handed out 50 dollar fines to businesses refusing to close, but they don?t actually have the right to collect it. The court will likely throw those out should the business owners decide to contest them. State governors can do a lot of things, but they cannot order citizens to wear masks, for governors do not make law. State legislatures make law. I haven?t heard the Texas legislature did so. >?And uh, amandment 10 says, ?The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.? That?s right. The powers to demand masks are nowhere to be found in the enumerated powers. >?Soooo, I think that means the governor (you know, in charge of a State) can mandate masks because I don?t think the state is forbidden from making sure people don?t kill each other... no one ever seemed to think TB quarantine was unconstitutional? Quarantines ARE constitutional. They have held up under judicial test. The demand by a governor to wear a mask is not constitutional because there isn?t a law passed by the TX legislature mandating that. >?States are not prohibited to order masks? But they didn?t. The legislature never passed any laws on that. Governors are not legislatures. >>?are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. >?So either the State can mandate masks, or individuals can. What?s the issue? Individuals can mandate they put a mask on themselves. You may not mandate that anyone else does. You may refuse to allow people in your home or your business without a mask. >?Emergency declarations trump the actual laws passed by legislative bodies because these legislative bodies passed laws stating that was the case. So technically there are laws which allow the governor to mandate this by fiat. And he did. So here we are? The emergency declarations do not give the states the right to dictate anything they want. Emergency declarations allow states to free up funds allocated to other purposes. California did that. They still do not have the authority to dictate wearing of masks in general. They can compel businesses to not allow entry by non-mask wearers. Of course that doesn?t apply to outdoors. >?Personally I find the US political situation to be unsalvageable. So I try not to worry about it and make myself ill. SR Ballard I see it as salvageable, for the system did exactly as it was designed: it prevented governments from seizing power in response to a crisis. This particular crisis is notable in that the governments at all levels failed to prevent covid in every country in the world, in every state, in every city. Everywhere has it now, in every form of government. The critical lesson is to depend on personal accountability and responsibility to our fellow humans rather than governments to protect us. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:46:49 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:46:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] word of the day In-Reply-To: References: <5E4F1B2D-EF0E-4E18-9A9C-70DC6666ECF4@gmail.com> Message-ID: Very much agreed. SR > On Jul 3, 2020, at 1:16 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Thanks, SR, that was interesting. Now if we can just get rid of all solitary confinement for any crime. Psych studies show that it will drive most people nuts in a short time. Cruel and unusual. > bill w > >> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 11:56 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kruger/photos/2006/qpe.html >> >> We don?t use the penitentiary model of prisons in the US because it?s illegal. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 3, 2020, at 8:30 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> Penitentiary - in effect if not in intention, the most misnamed thing of all time. >>> >>> 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 18:50:42 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 11:50:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] word of the day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55590198-C5CA-44D3-B7BA-B1C86DB05368@gmail.com> On Jul 3, 2020, at 6:34 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote:? > Penitentiary - in effect if not in intention, the most misnamed thing of all time. Reminds me of Ambrose Bierce?s definition of penitent: Undergoing or awaiting punishment. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 19:01:25 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 12:01:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01f001d6516c$59c37d70$0d4a7850$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat >?In many ways, there is only one party rule here despite the alleged policy differences between the two? Dylan Hi Dylan, I see little difference between the mainstream parties, but as a result of the pandemic and the riots, governments at all levels must cut spending dramatically and quickly. Some of the numbers we are hearing from Sacramento for budget shortfalls are stunning. States can borrow as well as the Fed, but investors might not line up to buy the bonds. I wouldn?t. Would you? Now we have all this debate about defund the police. Heh. That will happen regardless of whether we want it or not, along with a lot of other stuff being dramatically defunded. We knew this was coming eventually. It?s here. Surprise! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 19:01:45 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:01:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> Message-ID: My ideal representative would repeal & replace the vast majority of legislation into something reasonable, short, and common English. But good luck with that, I suppose. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 1:19 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > We'll just have to be satisfied that those people you mention are small minorities. Me? I would be happy with a do-nothing know-nothing president. Color, gender, age, orientation all irrelevant. bill w > >> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:15 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> Depends how far right we?re defining the far right as. Monarchists and Dominionists of course aren?t every going to be satisfied by any political party. Or fascists. Or incels who think every man should be assured a wife by the US government. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 3, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> Most of the far right are disgusted with the Republican party. >>> >>>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020, 1:18 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> I strenuously disagree that only the far right are the only members left in the Republican party. They?re just the loudest and they are growing, but they?re not the whole party. Surely even you know some ?not Trump, not Pence? Republicans? >>>> >>>> That?s like saying the only Democrats are Bernie diehards. >>>> >>>> SR Ballard >>>> >>>>> On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:55 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> > I didn?t jump to anyone?s defense. Pointing out that POTUS has no jurisdiction in this case isn?t defending POTUS. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> You're excusing POTUS's dereliction of duty. The virus has outsmarted Trump at every turn, he even gave the virus a silly nickname (kung flu) because that strategy worked so well against his political opponents, but to his surprise this time it didn't work, the virus remained unflustered. So Trump is out of ideas, he's in way over his head so he just throws up his hands and says there's nothing I can do so I don't want to talk or hear about it ever again, and then he goes out and plays golf or does what he's really good at, turning on Fox News and watching sycophants fawn over him. >>>>> >>>>>> > The rioters and BLM demonstrators are generally not wearing masks already. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> It's true that not all of them wore masks and they should have, but the percentage was much higher than at the Trump rallies, and at least the BLM people were outdoors. >>>>> >>>>>> > The guy in the video can?t do much of anything, because he isn?t a governor, only a POTUS. POTUS doesn?t have the authority a governor has in this case >>>>> >>>>> And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: >>>>> >>>>> "Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle they have before them." >>>>> >>>>>> > (Bill of Rights, Amendments 9 and 10.) >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> If what you say is true and the constitution renders the federal government powerless to protect its citizens from a global virus epidemic as every other advanced technological country in the world has managed to do then that is an admission that the constitution of the United States is a complete failure and is nothing but a worthless scrap of paper. But I don't really think the constitution is worthless, I think the current POTUS is worthless. Protecting its citizens is the entire point of having a federal government, but Trump is more interested in protecting statues of long dead American traitors. >>>>> >>>>>> > the pandemic is not a left-right issue, >>>>> >>>>> As long as Trump thinks wearing a virus protection mask is a political sign of personal dissatisfaction with him and as long as extreme right wing Republicans (the only type of Republican there is anymore) think that "member's of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior to everyone else" then like it or not the virus epidemic has very much become a left-right issue. And respect for the truth has also become a left-right issue. >>>>> >>>>> John K Clark >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 19:02:59 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:02:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6AC75A16-9A41-45E9-AC3E-E802CA76A5DF@gmail.com> ?The War of Northern Aggression? sounds like some serious Lost Cause propaganda. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 1:05 PM, Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat wrote: > > no, the next milestone is WWII. The WWII Memorial on the Wash. Mall says 384,000 military dead, IIRC, but Wiki says American deaths attributable to the war were 419,400. The curves are diverging so wildly that I dare not hazard a guess when we'll hit that milestone. > > The Civil War (aka The War of Northern Aggression aka The Late Unpleasantness) comes after that. > > K3 > >> On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:00:59 -0700, Keith Henson wrote: >> For John Clark, the next milestone will be when the number of dead >> exceeds the civil war casualties, something around 850,000. Given >> that 1.1 million was the bottom of one set of estimates, it seems >> fairly likely. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 19:33:46 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 15:33:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <01f001d6516c$59c37d70$0d4a7850$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> <01f001d6516c$59c37d70$0d4a7850$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yes, states are going to be in a terrible spot, and something will have to give. Look for getting taxed to death before spending cuts though! On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 3:30 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat > > > > >?In many ways, there is only one party rule here despite the alleged > policy differences between the two? Dylan > > > > Hi Dylan, I see little difference between the mainstream parties, but as a > result of the pandemic and the riots, governments at all levels must cut > spending dramatically and quickly. Some of the numbers we are hearing from > Sacramento for budget shortfalls are stunning. States can borrow as well > as the Fed, but investors might not line up to buy the bonds. I wouldn?t. > Would you? > > > > Now we have all this debate about defund the police. Heh. That will > happen regardless of whether we want it or not, along with a lot of other > stuff being dramatically defunded. We knew this was coming eventually. > It?s here. Surprise! > > > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 19:50:25 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 12:50:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <6AC75A16-9A41-45E9-AC3E-E802CA76A5DF@gmail.com> References: <6AC75A16-9A41-45E9-AC3E-E802CA76A5DF@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3DC8C002-7F43-4C00-A072-B17B3F5BD52B@gmail.com> On Jul 3, 2020, at 12:42 PM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > ??The War of Northern Aggression? sounds like some serious Lost Cause propaganda. > > SR Ballard Agreed. It?s also not the usual sort of civil war. For comparison, the English, Chinese, Russian, and various Roman civil wars ? as well as countless others ranging from ancient Corcyra to modern Syria ? were about who should rule the whole nation as well as the type of regime it should be. The American Civil War, however, was really about The South breaking away to preserve its slave system. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 19:56:22 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:56:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <6AC75A16-9A41-45E9-AC3E-E802CA76A5DF@gmail.com> References: <6AC75A16-9A41-45E9-AC3E-E802CA76A5DF@gmail.com> Message-ID: To me, it's just so funny. As you may or may not know. Mississippi was the last state to have in its state flag the Confederate Battle Flag. The blacks, the business community, the religious community have been after the legislature for quite a few years to change it, like some other states have done. As you may now know, the legislature has voted to change it. Why? It wasn't any of the above-named groups, nor was it Floyd. It was the NCAA. They told MIssissippi that no conference games or playoffs or really anything sanctioned by them could occur until the flag changed. So it did. Does that give you any idea of the mind set here? Racism comes before religion (even here is very religious MIssissippi), business ( so we're poor - we can stand it) and of course the feelings of Blacks, but it doesn't come before sports. Sad/funny. bill w On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 2:42 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > ?The War of Northern Aggression? sounds like some serious Lost Cause > propaganda. > > SR Ballard > > > On Jul 3, 2020, at 1:05 PM, Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > no, the next milestone is WWII. The WWII Memorial on the Wash. Mall > says 384,000 military dead, IIRC, but Wiki says American deaths > attributable to the war were 419,400. The curves are diverging so wildly > that I dare not hazard a guess when we'll hit that milestone. > > > > The Civil War (aka The War of Northern Aggression aka The Late > Unpleasantness) comes after that. > > > > K3 > > > >> On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:00:59 -0700, Keith Henson > wrote: > >> For John Clark, the next milestone will be when the number of dead > >> exceeds the civil war casualties, something around 850,000. Given > >> that 1.1 million was the bottom of one set of estimates, it seems > >> fairly likely. > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 19:58:24 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:58:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <3DC8C002-7F43-4C00-A072-B17B3F5BD52B@gmail.com> References: <6AC75A16-9A41-45E9-AC3E-E802CA76A5DF@gmail.com> <3DC8C002-7F43-4C00-A072-B17B3F5BD52B@gmail.com> Message-ID: The American Civil War, however, was really about The South breaking away to preserve its slave system. Dan Which of course means it was really about money - the money they had spent on the slaves and the money they would have to pay them to pick cotton. No question. Money. bill w On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 2:54 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jul 3, 2020, at 12:42 PM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ??The War of Northern Aggression? sounds like some serious Lost Cause > propaganda. > > SR Ballard > > > Agreed. It?s also not the usual sort of civil war. For comparison, the > English, Chinese, Russian, and various Roman civil wars ? as well as > countless others ranging from ancient Corcyra to modern Syria ? were about > who should rule the whole nation as well as the type of regime it should > be. The American Civil War, however, was really about The South breaking > away to preserve its slave system. > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 20:03:40 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:03:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <62005CCC-5D94-46C1-9978-8D1FC2CCCA21@gmail.com> <8C889967-897D-4730-8534-ED81A209C678@gmail.com> <01f001d6516c$59c37d70$0d4a7850$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005501d65175$0c058480$24108d80$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again >?Yes, states are going to be in a terrible spot, and something will have to give? It isn?t just states. Governments at every level are dependent on tax revenue which comes from money changing hands. >?Look for getting taxed to death before spending cuts though! Ja I see your reasoning, however? raising taxes during a downturn is nearly impossible. Revenues will drop regardless of what government does at any level. Our city is putting a new quarter cent sales tax measure on the ballot, but the budget shortfall will scarcely notice. Cities can borrow money, but that sounds risky to me: we already have a local city that went bust (Vallejo.) They were in Chapter 9 for nearly three years. California (and a lot of its cities) are in even worse problems. We can vaguely imagine a city with a 15% budget shortfall needs to lay off 15% of its workforce, however it doesn?t really work that way. They have pension obligations which may depend on current funding, and they have some state and federally mandated services. They might need to lay off 30% of their staff to make a 15% budget cut. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 20:20:33 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:20:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0D3E703C-0E5E-4DF7-9EF8-85D34431BA27@gmail.com> On Jul 3, 2020, at 1:07 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote:? > The American Civil War, however, was really about The South breaking away to preserve its slave system. > > Dan > > Which of course means it was really about money - the money they had spent on the slaves and the money they would have to pay them to pick cotton. No question. Money. > > bill w It?s interesting to put it that way because philosopher Roderick Long pointed out that before the war, the North was anti-slavery but also fairly mercantilist (anti-free trade) while they South was pro-slavery yet pro-free trade. This seems like a contradiction. Long opined that since slavery wasn?t central to the North?s economy (or its ruling class), it could afford to be anti-slavery, but manufacturing was central so manufacturing business elites didn?t want European goods competing against them, so they were against free trade. (The GOP was also anti-free trade at the time it formed and remained so for much of its history.) The South (or its ruling class) on the other hand saw slavery as central, abolition was off the table. However, the South didn?t have a huge manufacturing sector, so being pro-free trade didn?t threaten many established interests. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 20:31:14 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 15:31:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <01da01d65169$c3e32eb0$4ba98c10$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <011e01d65155$a5127a90$ef376fb0$@rainier66.com> <7AC5CC5A-9A50-40E3-AFD1-664AE158F8B0@gmail.com> <013701d6515b$b2de1160$189a3420$@rainier66.com> <3FBA5714-16B8-4539-A7EE-00544BB4D1A1@gmail.com> <01da01d65169$c3e32eb0$4ba98c10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I?m not worried by my own lack of responsibility, I am worried about other people?s lack of responsibility. GOVERNMENT CODE TITLE 4. EXECUTIVE BRANCH SUBTITLE B. LAW ENFORCEMENT AND PUBLIC PROTECTION CHAPTER 418. EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SUBCHAPTER A. GENERAL PROVISIONS Sec. 418.001. SHORT TITLE. This chapter may be cited as the Texas Disaster Act of 1975. Sec. 418.012. EXECUTIVE ORDERS. Under this chapter, the governor may issue executive orders, proclamations, and regulations and amend or rescind them. Executive orders, proclamations, and regulations have the force and effect of law. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 1:42 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again > > > > >?The governor maybe doesn?t have the ?right? but he will have the PoPo fine you $250, so that?s whatever? > > This has been a major point of contention, for some local constabularies handed out 50 dollar fines to businesses refusing to close, but they don?t actually have the right to collect it. The court will likely throw those out should the business owners decide to contest them. > > State governors can do a lot of things, but they cannot order citizens to wear masks, for governors do not make law. State legislatures make law. I haven?t heard the Texas legislature did so. > > >?And uh, amandment 10 says, ?The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.? > > That?s right. The powers to demand masks are nowhere to be found in the enumerated powers. > > >?Soooo, I think that means the governor (you know, in charge of a State) can mandate masks because I don?t think the state is forbidden from making sure people don?t kill each other... no one ever seemed to think TB quarantine was unconstitutional? > > Quarantines ARE constitutional. They have held up under judicial test. The demand by a governor to wear a mask is not constitutional because there isn?t a law passed by the TX legislature mandating that. > > >?States are not prohibited to order masks? > > But they didn?t. The legislature never passed any laws on that. Governors are not legislatures. > > >>?are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. > > >?So either the State can mandate masks, or individuals can. What?s the issue? > > Individuals can mandate they put a mask on themselves. You may not mandate that anyone else does. You may refuse to allow people in your home or your business without a mask. > > >?Emergency declarations trump the actual laws passed by legislative bodies because these legislative bodies passed laws stating that was the case. So technically there are laws which allow the governor to mandate this by fiat. And he did. So here we are? > > The emergency declarations do not give the states the right to dictate anything they want. Emergency declarations allow states to free up funds allocated to other purposes. California did that. They still do not have the authority to dictate wearing of masks in general. They can compel businesses to not allow entry by non-mask wearers. Of course that doesn?t apply to outdoors. > > >?Personally I find the US political situation to be unsalvageable. So I try not to worry about it and make myself ill. > > SR Ballard > > > I see it as salvageable, for the system did exactly as it was designed: it prevented governments from seizing power in response to a crisis. This particular crisis is notable in that the governments at all levels failed to prevent covid in every country in the world, in every state, in every city. Everywhere has it now, in every form of government. > > The critical lesson is to depend on personal accountability and responsibility to our fellow humans rather than governments to protect us. > > spike > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 20:55:08 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 13:55:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> References: <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <332517C7-CCC1-416A-9935-782B42BDC408@gmail.com> On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:08 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 10:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > >?And for similar reasons Franklin Roosevelt said in a famous speech: > > "Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle they have before them." > > Ja. Do you see the difference between a military attack by a foreign military and an attack by a virus? POTUS commands the military. POTUS can do that legally, but he military cannot shoot a virus. To do what it sounds like you expect would require POTUS to assume dictatorial powers, which POTUS cannot legally do. Actually, war was declared after FDR gave his famous speech, so we don?t really have a case of the executive going it alone here. It?s believe the original intent of the Framers was that the president would only direct military once the Congress authorized this ? not that a president would simply react without congressional approval. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 21:18:27 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 17:18:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 2:03 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> "*Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- >> the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and >> air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans when >> I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult struggle >> they have before them.*" > > > > > Ja. Do you see the difference between a military attack by a foreign > military and an attack by a virus? > No. *> To do what it sounds like you expect would require POTUS to assume > dictatorial powers, which POTUS cannot legally do.* > Japan, South Korea, Germany, Australia , New Zealand, Canada and many other countries managed to do what needed to be done and none of them have a dictator but they all had something the US disn't have, a leader who was not an imbecile. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 21:26:50 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 16:26:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: John, do you not think that Trump explored all the avenues in which he could dictate what he wanted? And do you not think that his advisors told him exactly what his powers were? And when he heard them, he decided that he could do nothing that would win him any political points, so he decided to sit there and hope it all goes away soon. I think that is a very likely scenario. bill w On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 4:21 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 2:03 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >> >> "*Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy >>> -- the Territory of Hawaii was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval >>> and air forces of the Empire of Japan. I'm sure I speak for all Americans >>> when I say I wish the Hawaiians the very best of luck in the difficult >>> struggle they have before them.*" >> >> >> >> > Ja. Do you see the difference between a military attack by a foreign >> military and an attack by a virus? >> > > No. > > *> To do what it sounds like you expect would require POTUS to assume >> dictatorial powers, which POTUS cannot legally do.* >> > > Japan, South Korea, Germany, Australia , New Zealand, Canada and many > other countries managed to do what needed to be done and none of them > have a dictator but they all had something the US disn't have, a leader > who was not an imbecile. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 21:39:33 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:39:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat >> Ja. Do you see the difference between a military attack by a foreign military and an attack by a virus? >?No. We do. > To do what it sounds like you expect would require POTUS to assume dictatorial powers, which POTUS cannot legally do. >?Japan, South Korea, Germany, Australia , New Zealand, Canada and many other countries managed to do what needed to be done and none of them have a dictator but they all had something the US disn't have, a leader who was not an imbecile. John K Clark It sounds like you would like to see the current POTUS or the next one seize dictatorial powers. We don?t. We can impeach the governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut if you think that will help, but I don?t see that as the path to success either: they know what they did wrong, and they also realize that governments aren?t god. Granted some did a great job: Montana, Alaska and Wyoming for instance. John keep reminding yourself: USA is the United States of America, not the United People of America (I assume you have at some point studied Orwell, ja?) The federal government only has the enumerated powers the constitution grants it, no more. That document, the foundation of our legal system was specifically designed to limit the federal government. To get around those legal limitations and seizing authority outside the enumerated powers would require overthrowing the constitution, at which time the federal (former) government has no legal power at all. And that is why we have a well-regulated militia. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 21:44:12 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 17:44:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 5:29 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> **he decided that he could do nothing that would win him any political > points, so he decided to sit there and hope it all goes away soon. I think > that is a very likely scenario.* I think so too. For Trump the three most important things are get reelected, get reelected, and get reelected. I don't believe doing something that would do nothing but save lives or help the country ever entered his head; if it doesn't help Donald J Trump he's just not interested and would rather tweet or watch TV. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 21:46:07 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 17:46:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 5:40 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > John keep reminding yourself: USA is the United States of America, not the > United People of America (I assume you have at some point studied Orwell, > ja?) The federal government only has the enumerated powers the > constitution grants it, no more. That document, the foundation of our > legal system was specifically designed to limit the federal government. To > get around those legal limitations and seizing authority outside the > enumerated powers would require overthrowing the constitution, at which > time the federal (former) government has no legal power at all. And that > is why we have a well-regulated militia. > > > > spike > Spike, based on his many posts on this list, I don't get the impression John is a fan of Constitutional Republics or representative democracy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 22:21:59 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 18:21:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 5:41 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> It sounds like you would like to see the current POTUS or the next one > seize dictatorial powers. * > Right, that's why I said "Japan, South Korea, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many other countries managed to do what needed to be done and none of them have a dictator". If that doesn't sound like I think a dictator is the only thing that could help what does? *> John keep reminding yourself: USA is the United States of America, not > the United People of America* > I said it before I'll say it again, your thesis is that the US Constitution prevents the federal government from protecting its citizens from a biological attack, if your thesis is correct then that is a devastating indictment of the US Constitution! But I have more respect for the constitution than you do, I don't think that's where the problem is, I think the problem is with a POTUS who lacks even a hint of human empathy and is astonishingly stupid and amazingly ignorant. > *I assume you have at some point studied Orwell, ja?* > Are you kidding? I reread 1984 the day after election day in 2016, it seemed like a very good time to do so. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 22:35:06 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 18:35:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 5:53 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *Spike, based on his many posts on this list, I don't get the impression > John is a fan of Constitutional Republics or representative democracy. * > The USA doesn't have a representative democracy and never did, instead it has an Electoral College; or to paraphrase George Orwell, everybody is represented but some people are more represented than others. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 22:49:35 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 18:49:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Wow, not sure how denying reality fits in with your scientific method, but we most certainly do have a representative democracy based upon a universal definition of the term. As has been discussed ad infinitum here, there is a good reason for the electoral college. We are the United *States* of America, where states have formed an umbrella organization with limited power (although this is sadly no longer true) and still maintain their rights to govern their own state and have a say in how the umbrella is managed. On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 6:36 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 5:53 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *Spike, based on his many posts on this list, I don't get the >> impression John is a fan of Constitutional Republics or representative >> democracy. * >> > > The USA doesn't have a representative democracy and never did, instead it > has an Electoral College; or to paraphrase George Orwell, everybody is > represented but some people are more represented than others. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 3 23:03:07 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 16:03:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004c01d6518e$1f339b50$5d9ad1f0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 5:40 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: John keep reminding yourself: USA is the United States of America, not the United People of America ? spike >?Spike, based on his many posts on this list, I don't get the impression John is a fan of Constitutional Republics or representative democracy. Agreed Dylan, but no worries, I am a fan of Constitutional Rights and representational democracy enough to cover the both of us, with change left over. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Fri Jul 3 23:51:55 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2020 16:51:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] word of the day Message-ID: <20200703165155.Horde.xsK9iPZnZqkwXJkGblZXO0J@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Bill W: > Penitentiary - in effect if not in intention, the most misnamed thing of > all time. > > bill w How so? In what sense is a penitentiary not a place of penance? Do you doubt that inmates of penitentiaries have cause to regret their crimes? Do you not believe incarceration is a punishment? Or is that the inmates are not actually absolved of their crimes by doing their time? Since penance and penitentiaries were originally Roman Catholic religious concepts involving sin, penance, and absolution. Which as SR Ballard points out also made its way into Quaker culture. Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 23:53:14 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 19:53:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <011d01d650b9$540e6650$fc2b32f0$@rainier66.com> <012901d650ba$37450e60$a5cf2b20$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6513c$d7fba850$87f2f8f0$@rainier66.com> <00e401d65148$16603fb0$4320bf10$@rainier66.com> <019801d65163$e666fe90$b334fbb0$@rainier66.com> <00e801d65182$71314120$5393c360$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 6:52 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> there is a good reason for the electoral college. We are the United > States of America, where states have formed an umbrella organization with > limited power (although this is sadly no longer true) and still maintain > their rights to govern their own state and have a say in how the umbrella > is managed.* > And obviously the only way that could be accomplished is if a Wyoming voter has 66.7 times as much representation as a California voter. Come on Dylan, I've heard lots of reasons offered on this list to excuse the idiotic electoral college but every single one of them is a variation on the exact same theme, namely that's just the way it's always been done. And we both know if California's population largely consisted of conservative right wing gun nuts and Wyoming was full of liberal left-wing tree huggers then your enthusiasm for the electoral college would be far far more muted. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 00:11:21 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 17:11:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again Message-ID: wrote: (spike) >>> Ja. Do you see the difference between a military attack by a foreign military and an attack by a virus? >John) >> No. > We do. Please don't speak for me, I tend to agree with John. Both require rational leadership which we did not get from the person who is supposed to be the leader. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 00:24:47 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 17:24:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again Message-ID: John Clark wrote: snip > But I have more respect for the constitution than you do, I don't think that's where the problem is, I think the problem is with a POTUS who lacks even a hint of human empathy and is astonishingly stupid and amazingly ignorant. Irrational too. Even with the Electoral College to amplify the effect, a lot of people in red states voted for him. Why? It's not the first time this has happened in history, what leads up to it? 30 some years ago I noted without understanding that economic downturns were correlated with upsurges in neo-nazi activity. I understand it now, but it seems I can't transfer that understanding to others. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 00:30:18 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 17:30:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again wrote: (spike) >>> Ja. Do you see the difference between a military attack by a foreign military and an attack by a virus? >John) >> No. >>... We do. >...Please don't speak for me... My apologies Keith. >...I tend to agree with John... No worries, you are so pleasant about it and refrain from campaigning in the wrong place. I don't necessarily disagree with John either on some things. I definitely disagree on the value of the US system: in my view it's great. It prevents totalitarianism. >...Both require rational leadership which we did not get from the person who is supposed to be the leader. Keith _______________________________________________ Ja I am told this, but in my view POTUS isn't a leader, and I don't suppose that that office should be a leader. POTUS is a politician. An example of a leader would be people like Sal Khan, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, those kinda guys. They had a vision, they carried it out, they led others to do great things, cool stuff happened. None of these guys are politicians, they are leaders. spike From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 00:36:36 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 17:36:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6DACE162-55E7-4A6B-8D24-EA097D7C7E77@gmail.com> Crises are generally seen by political entrepreneurs as opportunities, no? Anyhow, ?crisis? and ?opportunity? are not antonyms. Nor are they mutually exclusive concepts. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst Quoting Spike from earlier: > On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:30 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > ? > How very wrong you are, Spike. Everything, everything, everything is political to a politician, and if it isn't, they make it so by spin doctors. bill w > > The pandemic is not an opportunity, it is a crisis. > > > > spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robot at ultimax.com Sat Jul 4 00:19:53 2020 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2020 20:19:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2225c8b4342444ab09d5b78efeb4410d@ultimax.com> SR, that was a put-on. Around here (Tennessee) it's universally understood and used as a tongue-in-cheek quip at parties. If the phrase were used at face value, that would be some serious denial, but I've never encountered anyone who used that term straight. I hope I don't have to use emoticons on this list... K3 On Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:02:59 -0500, SR Ballard wrote: > "The War of Northern Aggression" sounds like some serious Lost Cause > propaganda. > > SR Ballard > >> On Jul 3, 2020, at 1:05 PM, Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> >> no, the next milestone is WWII. The WWII Memorial on the Wash. Mall >> says 384,000 military dead, IIRC, but Wiki says American deaths >> attributable >> to the war were 419,400. The curves are diverging so wildly that I >> dare not >> hazard a guess when we'll hit that milestone. >> >> The Civil War (aka The War of Northern Aggression aka The Late >> Unpleasantness) comes after that. >> >> K3 >> >>> On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:00:59 -0700, Keith Henson >>> wrote: >>> For John Clark, the next milestone will be when the number of dead >>> exceeds the civil war casualties, something around 850,000. Given >>> that 1.1 million was the bottom of one set of estimates, it seems >>> fairly likely. From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 04:16:48 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 23:16:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <2225c8b4342444ab09d5b78efeb4410d@ultimax.com> References: <2225c8b4342444ab09d5b78efeb4410d@ultimax.com> Message-ID: Oh, where I lived in Georgia people still used ?General Sherman? as a cussword and the ?Lost Cause? reigned supreme in everyone?s minds when they thought about the ?glory days of the south?. It was awkward. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 7:19 PM, Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat wrote: > > SR, that was a put-on. Around here (Tennessee) it's universally understood and used as a tongue-in-cheek quip at parties. > > If the phrase were used at face value, that would be some serious denial, but I've never encountered anyone who used that term straight. > > I hope I don't have to use emoticons on this list... > > K3 > >> On Fri, 3 Jul 2020 14:02:59 -0500, SR Ballard wrote: >> "The War of Northern Aggression" sounds like some serious Lost Cause propaganda. >> SR Ballard >>> On Jul 3, 2020, at 1:05 PM, Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat wrote: >>> no, the next milestone is WWII. The WWII Memorial on the Wash. Mall >>> says 384,000 military dead, IIRC, but Wiki says American deaths attributable >>> to the war were 419,400. The curves are diverging so wildly that I dare not >>> hazard a guess when we'll hit that milestone. >>> The Civil War (aka The War of Northern Aggression aka The Late Unpleasantness) comes after that. >>> K3 >>>> On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:00:59 -0700, Keith Henson wrote: >>>> For John Clark, the next milestone will be when the number of dead >>>> exceeds the civil war casualties, something around 850,000. Given >>>> that 1.1 million was the bottom of one set of estimates, it seems >>>> fairly likely. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 04:32:09 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 23:32:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] word of the day In-Reply-To: <20200703165155.Horde.xsK9iPZnZqkwXJkGblZXO0J@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200703165155.Horde.xsK9iPZnZqkwXJkGblZXO0J@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <9B4BDD65-B80F-4536-9134-0E9BBDE8BDBF@gmail.com> I think we are confusing the religious sense of penance with the secular usage. The penitentiary was originally religious in nature, aimed at reforming the soul and turning the sinner back to God. The American penitentiary was originally the Quaker conception, with all other places being either prisons, or jails. We go not have penitentiaries in the religious sense. We have jails and prisons. People are not sent to jail/prison in an attempt to cause them so much physical and emotional distress (mortification) that they are purged of their sins. Jails and prisons are their own punishment. They are not aimed at rehabilitation of the individual within society, nor are they aimed at setting him right with God via mortification of the flesh. Solitary confinement is not used to cut a man off from all evil influences so he will turn to God, but instead to punish a prisoner and break him mentally. A Jail/Prison is not a place of penance. People do not willingly enter into this place to expiate their sins, nor is there any conscious effort on the part of the State or the staff to effect such a change. I sincerely doubt that a jail/prison encourages people to regret their crimes. What counciling is provided to inmates in that regard? Instead they are exposed to a blatant disregard for human life, privacy, and dignity. They are stripped of their agency and abused at every opportunity. They are treated like human trash, regardless of their crimes. What Jail/Prison does is cause people to regret getting caught, teaches them to lie more effectively, and encourages them to learn and master new ways of committing crime and violence which are normalized and rewarded by their environment. If Jails/Prisons we truly penitentiaries, we should expect to see men go in as broken sinners of the highest degree, and exit devout men, purged of the need to do evil. Alas, even the Quakers found that they just drove everyone insane due to the solitary confinement. SR Ballard > On Jul 3, 2020, at 6:51 PM, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > > > Quoting Bill W: > >> Penitentiary - in effect if not in intention, the most misnamed thing of >> all time. >> >> bill w > > How so? In what sense is a penitentiary not a place of penance? Do you doubt that inmates of penitentiaries have cause to regret their crimes? Do you not believe incarceration is a punishment? Or is that the inmates are not actually absolved of their crimes by doing their time? Since penance and penitentiaries were originally Roman Catholic religious concepts involving sin, penance, and absolution. Which as SR Ballard points out also made its way into Quaker culture. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 10:34:39 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 06:34:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 8:33 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >* I don't necessarily disagree with John either on some things. I > definitely disagree on the value of the US system: in my view it's great. > It prevents totalitarianism.* But apparently it can't prevent mass death from COVID-19 virus attacks as other countries can. It can't prevent spending far *FAR* more per capita on healthcare than any other country on this planet but nevertheless only having the 38th longest life expectancy. It can't prevent our "representative democracy" giving some people 66.7 times more representation than other people. In the final analysis the only rationale to defend any of this is always just a variation of the "that's the way it's always been done" theme; we can't change the way things are done because that's the way things have always been done. *> It prevents totalitarianism.* In the country's entire 250 year history I don't think it's ever been closer to complete totalitarianism 1984 style than it is right now. And today POTUS is at Mount Rushmore attending a virus spewing festival dry humping the American flag and setting off fireworks as his country burns. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 14:18:37 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 07:18:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 8:33 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > I don't necessarily disagree with John either on some things. I definitely disagree on the value of the US system: in my view it's great. It prevents totalitarianism. >?But apparently it can't prevent mass death from COVID-19 virus attacks as other countries can? Some jurisdictions in the USA did stop the virus better than any others. The world?s top three are Alaska, Wyoming and Montana. Totalitarianism is a disease at the federal level, but disease control is done at the state level. New Jersey and New York were the two worst jurisdictions in the world. Those two were a catastrophe. Connecticut and Massachusetts were both very bad. Governments cannot stop covid. No country or jurisdiction stopped it. >?It can't prevent spending far FAR more per capita on healthcare than any other country on this planet but nevertheless only having the 38th longest life expectancy? Keep in mind that those stats don?t filter out the young gangsters who shoot each other regularly, which runs up medical costs and lowers life expectancy. If you isolate that factor everywhere (because intentional harm messes up statistics) then the life expectancy is comparable here to other nations. Take into account also that in most countries, students go from high school into medical school. In the US they usually must go to college first, which runs up costs. Our drug qualification trials are more expensive than other countries, which is why many other countries just wait and buy whatever makes it through that process. If we dismantle that system entirely, we could save a lot of money. If we relax standards for licensing, we could save money. Is anyone here advocating these methods? >?It can't prevent our "representative democracy" giving some people 66.7 times more representation than other people?. This one always gets me. It isn?t people from Wyoming that have such influence (for that state is as free as California, New York and Texas (the individual voter in Wyoming is nearly irrelevant.)) The voters that really matter are those from Ohio, Pennsylvania and especially purple swinger Florida (note 2000 experience where a few hundred carried the day.) The beauty of the representative republic model is that it protects minorities against majority rule. Minorities deserve protection from majority rule, which is fascism. All minorities deserve protection. Regarding Wyoming: they are smarter on average than we are. Have you seen their state?s average SAT scores? The highest ranking states in the nation every year tend to be Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and ironically they spend way less per capita for education than the lowest average states. Have some respect. Wyoming residents are highly intelligent on average. Note every American is free to move to Wyoming if we wish. There?s plenty of room out there. You get to become 66 votes, and be free at the same time. Such a deal! >?In the final analysis the only rationale to defend any of this is always just a variation of the "that's the way it's always been done" theme? On the contrary. Had it never been done this way, it would still be the most ideal way to run a coalition of states. If we were inventing it now, it would be the best way. The notion of distributed power, with some of it resting at the federal level is ideal: it protects minority views in less populated places while reducing dependence on government. >? we can't change the way things are done because that's the way things have always been done? We can change it: that would require overthrowing the constitution of course, which not many want to do. There is beauty in the design of that government structure. > It prevents totalitarianism. >?In the country's entire 250 year history I don't think it's ever been closer to complete totalitarianism 1984 style than it is right now?. Well there ya go. Aren?t you glad we have a constitution? So am I. >?And today POTUS is at Mount Rushmore attending a virus spewing festival dry humping the American flag and setting off fireworks as his country burns?John K Clark ?Bah! Humbug on Independence Day,? he scowled as the children fled. Eh, it?s a once-a-year celebration for those of us who feel the burn, those who love fireworks, picnics, car races and parades, who celebrate the blessings of liberty, who feel joy in just being alive in our glorious times! Temporarily set aside the bitterness, feel the joy, share in the warm glow of fellowship, at least temporarily, before again embracing the bitter acrimony. Independence Day is a midsummer festival where the people young and old, form lasting happy memories of patriotism and love of country, a time of thanksgiving even in a season of distress. Endure it John. This too shall pass, life goes on. We know life is not fair, but life is good, and good is better than fair. Life? is? gooooooood? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 14:49:26 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 09:49:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] word of the day In-Reply-To: <9B4BDD65-B80F-4536-9134-0E9BBDE8BDBF@gmail.com> References: <20200703165155.Horde.xsK9iPZnZqkwXJkGblZXO0J@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <9B4BDD65-B80F-4536-9134-0E9BBDE8BDBF@gmail.com> Message-ID: SR, you are producing some really good posts. I have learned a lot from them. Thanks! bill w On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 11:34 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I think we are confusing the religious sense of penance with the secular > usage. > > The penitentiary was originally religious in nature, aimed at reforming > the soul and turning the sinner back to God. > > The American penitentiary was originally the Quaker conception, with all > other places being either prisons, or jails. > > We go not have penitentiaries in the religious sense. We have jails and > prisons. People are not sent to jail/prison in an attempt to cause them so > much physical and emotional distress (mortification) that they are purged > of their sins. > > Jails and prisons are their own punishment. They are not aimed at > rehabilitation of the individual within society, nor are they aimed at > setting him right with God via mortification of the flesh. Solitary > confinement is not used to cut a man off from all evil influences so he > will turn to God, but instead to punish a prisoner and break him mentally. > > A Jail/Prison is not a place of penance. People do not willingly enter > into this place to expiate their sins, nor is there any conscious effort on > the part of the State or the staff to effect such a change. > > I sincerely doubt that a jail/prison encourages people to regret their > crimes. What counciling is provided to inmates in that regard? Instead they > are exposed to a blatant disregard for human life, privacy, and dignity. > They are stripped of their agency and abused at every opportunity. They are > treated like human trash, regardless of their crimes. What Jail/Prison does > is cause people to regret getting caught, teaches them to lie more > effectively, and encourages them to learn and master new ways of committing > crime and violence which are normalized and rewarded by their environment. > > If Jails/Prisons we truly penitentiaries, we should expect to see men go > in as broken sinners of the highest degree, and exit devout men, purged of > the need to do evil. Alas, even the Quakers found that they just drove > everyone insane due to the solitary confinement. > SR Ballard > > On Jul 3, 2020, at 6:51 PM, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Quoting Bill W: > > Penitentiary - in effect if not in intention, the most misnamed thing of > > all time. > > > bill w > > > How so? In what sense is a penitentiary not a place of penance? Do you > doubt that inmates of penitentiaries have cause to regret their crimes? Do > you not believe incarceration is a punishment? Or is that the inmates are > not actually absolved of their crimes by doing their time? Since penance > and penitentiaries were originally Roman Catholic religious concepts > involving sin, penance, and absolution. Which as SR Ballard points out also > made its way into Quaker culture. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 15:37:03 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 08:37:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] word of the day In-Reply-To: References: <20200703165155.Horde.xsK9iPZnZqkwXJkGblZXO0J@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <9B4BDD65-B80F-4536-9134-0E9BBDE8BDBF@gmail.com> Message-ID: <009801d65218$f7f21ae0$e7d650a0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] word of the day SR, you are producing some really good posts. I have learned a lot from them. Thanks! bill w Me too SR! You bring us a perspective we have lacked perhaps. Your comments on the ?assault weapons? being a visual assault and a military assault rather than the crime version of the term really has me thinking: just paint them pink. The military doesn?t use pink rifles, criminals don?t use pink rifles, cuddly baby girls that sorta thing, it is such a warm inviting harmless color, drops it right off the assault weapons list. We science geeks tend to focus on our areas and lose sight of too many things. SR, thanks for being among us and staying with us. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 16:25:34 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 09:25:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] lag time Message-ID: <00d301d6521f$bee2d990$3ca88cb0$@rainier66.com> The data here is from the county where I live, Santa Clara CA. Check out these two graphs, about a third of the way down the page, to estimate the lag time between new case detection and death rate: https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/santa-clara-county/ If you look at the initial surge, it kinda looks like there was a big surge around late March. But the big surge in death per day was about almost middle of April. With the partial re-opening of some businesses (and the unfortunate coincident timing of the rallies and riots complicating the picture) we will perhaps get some indication of what is going on. Our current rate shows that covid is killing about half a prole a day in this county of about 2 million. The rate appears to be declining gradually, but with these numbers it is hard to tell for sure. So now we see what happens in about a week. I am focused on this data because of my role in a volunteer committee regarding public school opening. I tend to be a bit over on the cautious side. I also realize I am a parent of a student who does just fine with video and distance learning. But I know of those students who do not. I am told there are some students who desperately need social interaction (nearly every day (for mental health reasons (indeed? (why?)))) and that video learning is practically useless to them. Well, ok then. I believes it but I doesn?t understands it. On the other hand? people to go bars and restaurants and gun shops by choice. People even go to grocery stores by choice. But public school students are compelled to attend. So? I hold my position: when in doubt, hold em out. Anyone here who wishes to offer suggestions, particularly the insighty types, BillW, SR, anyone else who has public school experience, I am all ears. We hafta wait for about a week or two, to see where the case rate and death rate goes, but at this point I am compelled to say we can?t let the proles back on campus the entire first semester. I plan to use my committee member vote to recommend we not open in September. Too much risk of asymptomatic students carrying the virus home and killing grandma. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 16:29:41 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 11:29:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. Message-ID: Should we stop honoring famous scientists and mathematicians because they were racist or supported things like eugenics? https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/amid-protests-against-racism-scientists-move-strip-offensive-names-journals-prizes-and ?Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) decided to change the naming of its graduate school after Nobel Laureate James Watson because of his past racial comments.? ?The current movement isn?t the first to target scientists whose actions were judged unconscionable by subsequent generations. After the fall of Nazi Germany, apartheid in South Africa, and various communist nations, the names of scientists who supported oppressive policies were stripped from institutions and awards. And even before the recent demonstrations against systemic racism in the United States, many scientists had lobbied universities and science groups to stop honoring prominent researchers who had bigoted views. In 2018, for instance, years of activism prompted the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, to remove the name of Clarence Cook Little, an influential 20th century geneticist who supported eugenics, from a science building and a transit hub.? Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement? SR Ballard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 16:48:17 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 17:48:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] lag time In-Reply-To: <00d301d6521f$bee2d990$3ca88cb0$@rainier66.com> References: <00d301d6521f$bee2d990$3ca88cb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jul 2020 at 17:28, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > I tend to be a bit over on the cautious side. I also realize I am a parent of a student who does just fine with video and distance learning. But I know of those students who do not. I am told there are some students who desperately need social interaction (nearly every day (for mental health reasons (indeed? (why?)))) and that video learning is practically useless to them. Well, ok then. I believes it but I doesn?t understands it. > > On the other hand? people to go bars and restaurants and gun shops by choice. People even go to grocery stores by choice. But public school students are compelled to attend. So? I hold my position: when in doubt, hold em out. > > Anyone here who wishes to offer suggestions, particularly the insighty types, BillW, SR, anyone else who has public school experience, I am all ears. We hafta wait for about a week or two, to see where the case rate and death rate goes, but at this point I am compelled to say we can?t let the proles back on campus the entire first semester. I plan to use my committee member vote to recommend we not open in September. Too much risk of asymptomatic students carrying the virus home and killing grandma. > Todays Dilbert is apt for us geeky types -- BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 16:59:21 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 09:59:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00ee01d65224$774f3bf0$65edb3d0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. >?Should we stop honoring famous scientists and mathematicians because they were racist or supported things like eugenics? https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/amid-protests-against-racism-scientists-move-strip-offensive-names-journals-prizes-and >??Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) decided to change the naming of its graduate school after Nobel Laureate James Watson because of his past racial comments.? >??Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement? SR Ballard It seems to have come in vogue to erase history, perhaps in support of an effort to revise it. If we do not know our history, we are free to judge people from the past using the values of today, which is all we have left. This would explain the inexplicable, such as the tearing down of Abraham Lincoln memorials. We get Jackson, Washington, Jefferson, but Lincoln? If it becomes normal to judge people from the past using today?s social mores, then it will be the norm to judge us by values and ethics 20 or 50 years from now. We do not know what those values and mores will be. The internet never forgets. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 17:18:34 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 13:18:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:21 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Some jurisdictions in the USA did stop the virus better than any > others. The world?s top three are Alaska, Wyoming and Montana. * > For some reason you didn't mention the state with the very lowest COVID-19 death rate, Hawaii. it couldn't be because it's a democratic state could it? >?It can't prevent spending far *FAR* more per capita on healthcare than >> any other country on this planet but nevertheless only having the 38th >> longest life expectancy? > > > *> Keep in mind that those stats don?t filter out the young gangsters who > shoot each other regularly, which runs up medical costs and lowers life > expectancy. If you isolate that factor everywhere (because intentional > harm messes up statistics) then the life expectancy is comparable here to > other nations. * > That's just plain silly, last year in the US 2,839,205 died but only 19,510 people were murdered. A drop in the bucket. > Take into account also that in most countries, students go from high > school into medical school. In the US they usually must go to college > first,which runs up costs. > I don't know where in the world you got that but maybe it's true for Third World countries but not for the 37 countries that have a longer life expectancy than the US does. But it doesn't even matter because even if it's true it would in no way change the fact that the healthcare system in the USA sucks compared to the rest of the world, all you would've done is put your finger on one reason why it sucks compared with the rest of the world. > *Our drug qualification trials are more expensive than other countries,* > If true, which I doubt, it just means the US is wasting that drug testing money pushing paper and not on helping patients live longer because they most certainly do NOT live longer compared with other countries that spend less than a third as much on healthcare as the USA does. *> which is why many other countries just wait and buy whatever makes it > through that process.* Maybe true for some Third World countries but not for the 37 countries that have a longer life expectancy than the US does. *>The beauty of the representative republic model * > Giving some people 66.7 times more representation than others is a pretty crappy model, and it's not very beautiful either. *> every American is free to move to Wyoming if we wish.* Spike, do you honestly believe love it or leave it is a good defense of the electoral college? *> is that it protects minorities against majority rule. Minorities > deserve protection from majority rule, which is fascism. All minorities > deserve protection.* > I wasn't aware you were in favor of affirmative action to favor minorities, but Wyoming is lily white, only 2.47% of the population is Native American and 1.8% black. >?In the final analysis the only rationale to defend any of this is always >> just a variation of the "that's the way it's always been done" theme? > > > >> On the contrary. Had it never been done this way, it would still be > the most ideal way to run a coalition of states. > I am quite certain that isn't true, but if it was that would mean a c oalition of states is a bad idea and a coalition of people would work much better. > it protects minority views in less populated places > Even if you accept the very dubious proposition that rich people should have more voting rights then poor people that still makes no sense because land ownership is just one of many forms of wealth. Why does how much land one person owns give him 66.7 times more voting heft, but another person's expensive Manhattan penthouse or gold or S&P 500 stocks does not similarly enhance his citizenship? > *Regarding Wyoming: they are smarter on average than we are. * > There is an existence proof that they are not. In 2016 Wyoming went for Trump. QED > > *Have some respect. * > >From this day forward I solemnly swear to give Trump supporters all the respect they deserve. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 17:20:13 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 10:20:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] lag time In-Reply-To: References: <00d301d6521f$bee2d990$3ca88cb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00f801d65227$6161a640$2424f2c0$@rainier66.com> >..> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] lag time On Sat, 4 Jul 2020 at 17:28, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > >... I am told there are some students who desperately need social interaction (nearly every day (for mental health reasons (indeed? (why?)))) ... I believes it but I doesn?t understands it... spike >...Todays Dilbert is apt for us geeky types -- BillK _______________________________________________ Ok cool thanks BillK. Why... is... this? And why is it so common among engineers? I am becoming aware from a short video I saw taken last week of a swingin nightclub in San Jose: the place was packed to the rafters. They have a dance floor but I don't see what good it does: there was no room to dance. I have never been to one and have no intentions of taking it up now, but this leads to an obvious question: why do some people go there, pay a lot of money, take enormous risks? And why would that be for me a severe punishment to even be there? In the same species, why are there both pack animals and lone wolves? Keith, do EP offer any insights? I am stumped on this one. One more dimension please: there are some of us who think of ourselves as lone wolves, but we really are not: we have transitioned our social life into text on the computer. I see that format or forum as being as good as in-person meetings, or really superior: it doesn't cost anything, there might be less risk of being misunderstood (depending on one's skill with a keyboard) it removes the body language element to which I personally am nearly blind, and... it is safer. On the other hand... my neighbor up the street is a teenager. She has friends at her house nearly every day. Her parents do not stop this, for they know she thirsts for human interaction. Her brother isn't that way, my son isn't that way, and I don't understand why why why the heck there are introverts and extroverts. I am all the way back to the Popeye accented comment: I sees it, I believes it, but I doesn?t understands it... spike From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sat Jul 4 17:21:22 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 13:21:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] lag time In-Reply-To: <00d301d6521f$bee2d990$3ca88cb0$@rainier66.com> References: <00d301d6521f$bee2d990$3ca88cb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <7098EB6B-6FA9-4115-8854-FA1F3A3A6FA2@alumni.virginia.edu> The kids who desperately need the social interaction are ones who tend to only get social interaction at school and within their homes. They don?t ?socialize? online much like their peers, and they don?t seek out social opportunities. Forced socializing at school by virtue of participating in work groups, lunch, and answering their teachers is their only practical hope for this crucial part of their development. These kids even not in a pandemic would not be socializing with others if they could help it, and in a pandemic it?s all to easy for them to avoid and stay isolated with little opportunity for any alternative. Many have regressed socially at this time I imagine. Video learning for them may be an option for academic competencies, but it isn?t addressing their social development needs. -Henry > On Jul 4, 2020, at 12:25 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > The data here is from the county where I live, Santa Clara CA. Check out these two graphs, about a third of the way down the page, to estimate the lag time between new case detection and death rate: > > https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/santa-clara-county/ > > If you look at the initial surge, it kinda looks like there was a big surge around late March. But the big surge in death per day was about almost middle of April. > > With the partial re-opening of some businesses (and the unfortunate coincident timing of the rallies and riots complicating the picture) we will perhaps get some indication of what is going on. Our current rate shows that covid is killing about half a prole a day in this county of about 2 million. The rate appears to be declining gradually, but with these numbers it is hard to tell for sure. So now we see what happens in about a week. > > I am focused on this data because of my role in a volunteer committee regarding public school opening. > > I tend to be a bit over on the cautious side. I also realize I am a parent of a student who does just fine with video and distance learning. But I know of those students who do not. I am told there are some students who desperately need social interaction (nearly every day (for mental health reasons (indeed? (why?)))) and that video learning is practically useless to them. Well, ok then. I believes it but I doesn?t understands it. > > On the other hand? people to go bars and restaurants and gun shops by choice. People even go to grocery stores by choice. But public school students are compelled to attend. So? I hold my position: when in doubt, hold em out. > > Anyone here who wishes to offer suggestions, particularly the insighty types, BillW, SR, anyone else who has public school experience, I am all ears. We hafta wait for about a week or two, to see where the case rate and death rate goes, but at this point I am compelled to say we can?t let the proles back on campus the entire first semester. I plan to use my committee member vote to recommend we not open in September. Too much risk of asymptomatic students carrying the virus home and killing grandma. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 17:27:20 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 12:27:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] word of the day In-Reply-To: <009801d65218$f7f21ae0$e7d650a0$@rainier66.com> References: <20200703165155.Horde.xsK9iPZnZqkwXJkGblZXO0J@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <9B4BDD65-B80F-4536-9134-0E9BBDE8BDBF@gmail.com> <009801d65218$f7f21ae0$e7d650a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Your comments on the ?assault weapons? being a visual assault and a military assault rather than the crime version of the term really has me thinking: just paint them pink. The military doesn?t use pink rifles, criminals don?t use pink rifles, cuddly baby girls that sorta thing, it is such a warm inviting harmless color, drops it right off the assault weapons list. spike I have read recently where some jails or prison cells have been painted pink. I have no idea why - what psychological effect it was suppose to have. bill w On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:39 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] word of the day > > > > SR, you are producing some really good posts. I have learned a lot from > them. Thanks! bill w > > > > > > Me too SR! You bring us a perspective we have lacked perhaps. > > > > Your comments on the ?assault weapons? being a visual assault and a > military assault rather than the crime version of the term really has me > thinking: just paint them pink. The military doesn?t use pink rifles, > criminals don?t use pink rifles, cuddly baby girls that sorta thing, it is > such a warm inviting harmless color, drops it right off the assault weapons > list. > > > > We science geeks tend to focus on our areas and lose sight of too many > things. SR, thanks for being among us and staying with us. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 17:38:15 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 12:38:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement? SR Ballard It's the same question in baseball. One player of the Black Sox, so -called, was kicked out of baseball forever because he participated in some way about throwing games. But he batted a quite good average of .365 or something. Didn't matter. Then there is Pete Rose. Certainly one of the greatest hitters of all time - top five. Bet on his own team while managing it. Will never get in the Hall of Fame. Then there are some home run hitters who took steroids - and one very great pitcher. McGuire, Sasa, etc. Not even close in the Hall of Fame voting. So clearly the baseball writers, who have the votes, think the Hall should also be some sort of moral godfather and deny entrance on extra-baseball grounds. Me? I would vote them in there. For the steroid guys I would put asterisks by their home run numbers to indicate that they cheated. Ironically, all of these guys would be in the Hall if they had never used steroids. bill w On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 11:34 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Should we stop honoring famous scientists and mathematicians because they > were racist or supported things like eugenics? > > > https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/amid-protests-against-racism-scientists-move-strip-offensive-names-journals-prizes-and > > ?Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) decided to change the naming of its > graduate school > after > Nobel Laureate James Watson because of his past racial comments.? > > ?The current movement isn?t the first to target scientists whose actions > were judged unconscionable by subsequent generations. After the fall of > Nazi Germany, apartheid in South Africa, and various communist nations, the > names of scientists who supported oppressive policies were stripped from > institutions and awards. And even before the recent demonstrations against > systemic racism in the United States, many scientists had lobbied > universities and science groups to stop honoring prominent researchers who > had bigoted views. In 2018, for instance, years of activism prompted the > University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, to remove the name of Clarence Cook > Little, an influential 20th century geneticist who supported eugenics, from > a science building and a transit hub.? > > Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition of > their scientific achievement? > > SR Ballard > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 17:52:31 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 12:52:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] lag time In-Reply-To: <7098EB6B-6FA9-4115-8854-FA1F3A3A6FA2@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <00d301d6521f$bee2d990$3ca88cb0$@rainier66.com> <7098EB6B-6FA9-4115-8854-FA1F3A3A6FA2@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: I wonder if someone could get ahold of cell phone use data. I suspect that many of those kids are sending/receiving dozens, even hundreds of texts a day to experience the 'touch' of other kids. ("Reach out and touch someone." was a great advertising idea) As for the kids in bars and dance halls (there's an old phrase) you have to wonder if they have seen the news about the virus affecting nearly everyone at some bar or family reunion (one boy had it and gave it to 18 of his relatives). Maybe they have, and still have the 'can't happen to me - I am invincible' type of youngster. Spike - keep 'em out. Save lives. A few will take the virus home and kill older relatives - absolutely no doubt of this. There is NO critical period in youth where they have to learn social skills or they never will learn them. It may be nerve-wracking to them, but they will survive - esp if they have cell phones. (not contradicting you here, Henry). In less serious news. MIssissippi's governor signed a bill to make the whole state wet, validating the amendment (still local option, though - have to vote to get wet; but at least they can) bill w On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 12:34 PM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The kids who desperately need the social interaction are ones who tend to > only get social interaction at school and within their homes. They don?t > ?socialize? online much like their peers, and they don?t seek out social > opportunities. Forced socializing at school by virtue of participating in > work groups, lunch, and answering their teachers is their only practical > hope for this crucial part of their development. These kids even not in a > pandemic would not be socializing with others if they could help it, and in > a pandemic it?s all to easy for them to avoid and stay isolated with little > opportunity for any alternative. Many have regressed socially at this time > I imagine. Video learning for them may be an option for academic > competencies, but it isn?t addressing their social development needs. > -Henry > > On Jul 4, 2020, at 12:25 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > > > > The data here is from the county where I live, Santa Clara CA. Check out > these two graphs, about a third of the way down the page, to estimate the > lag time between new case detection and death rate: > > > > > https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/santa-clara-county/ > > > > If you look at the initial surge, it kinda looks like there was a big > surge around late March. But the big surge in death per day was about > almost middle of April. > > > > With the partial re-opening of some businesses (and the unfortunate > coincident timing of the rallies and riots complicating the picture) we > will perhaps get some indication of what is going on. Our current rate > shows that covid is killing about half a prole a day in this county of > about 2 million. The rate appears to be declining gradually, but with > these numbers it is hard to tell for sure. So now we see what happens in > about a week. > > > > I am focused on this data because of my role in a volunteer committee > regarding public school opening. > > > > I tend to be a bit over on the cautious side. I also realize I am a > parent of a student who does just fine with video and distance learning. > But I know of those students who do not. I am told there are some students > who desperately need social interaction (nearly every day (for mental > health reasons (indeed? (why?)))) and that video learning is practically > useless to them. Well, ok then. I believes it but I doesn?t understands > it. > > > > On the other hand? people to go bars and restaurants and gun shops by > choice. People even go to grocery stores by choice. But public school > students are compelled to attend. So? I hold my position: when in doubt, > hold em out. > > > > Anyone here who wishes to offer suggestions, particularly the insighty > types, BillW, SR, anyone else who has public school experience, I am all > ears. We hafta wait for about a week or two, to see where the case rate > and death rate goes, but at this point I am compelled to say we can?t let > the proles back on campus the entire first semester. I plan to use my > committee member vote to recommend we not open in September. Too much risk > of asymptomatic students carrying the virus home and killing grandma. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 18:20:19 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 11:20:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:21 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > Some jurisdictions in the USA did stop the virus better than any others. The world?s top three are Alaska, Wyoming and Montana. >?For some reason you didn't mention the state with the very lowest COVID-19 death rate, Hawaii. it couldn't be because it's a democratic state could it? No, it was because I hadn?t heard that and I don?t what party that state is. That is irrelevant in any case, because covid doesn?t have a party. It has some states which have been devoured and others which have been spared. Political party information isn?t on the chart where I found the data in any case. It was a colored map. Hawaii is easy to miss down there. Incessant politicization of covid is a crass form of leveraging a crisis into an opportunity. Each time any political party or politician is mentioned in this context, the credibility of a covid-related post drops by half. That isn?t science at its best, it?s politics at is worst. > Take into account also that in most countries, students go from high school into medical school. In the US they usually must go to college first,which runs up costs. >?I don't know where in the world you got that but maybe it's true for Third World countries but not for the 37 countries that have a longer life expectancy than the US does? I got it from Quora: What countries require an undergraduate degree before applying to medical school? ? Shaik Afshan , former Student Answered July 6, 2018 Australia, New Zealand, UK, USA and Canada are the countries in which you need to have a bachelor's degree before entering into the medical school. I don?t know if it is true. Anyone here know? I have two friends, one went to medical school in China, one went to medical school in Iran, both from high school to med school, both had her medical license in early 20s. Both came to America, neither have been allowed to practice. >?But it doesn't even matter because even if it's true it would in no way change the fact that the healthcare system in the USA sucks compared to the rest of the world? I see, so the method is to establish that judgment as the baseline fact, and any observation to the contrary is irrelevant unless it conforms to the assumption. Very well. There is no further discussion required, the conclusion has been drawn. >>? Our drug qualification trials are more expensive than other countries, >?If true, which I doubt, it just means the US is wasting that drug testing money pushing paper and not on helping patients live longer? I hear that turn of phrase often, but it always causes me to wonder where they push the paper to? Does it suggest the half billion it costs to bring a new drug to market is not used for testing efficacy? >>?The beauty of the representative republic model >?Giving some people 66.7 times more representation than others is a pretty crappy model, and it's not very beautiful either? It protects minority rights. Minorities have rights too. Without that system, most states become irrelevant. However, the heavy lifting in the task of government takes place at the state level. People from sparsely populated states have a lot more individual influence on a state government, each of which has two senators. That makes perfect sense to me. >> every American is free to move to Wyoming if we wish. >?Spike, do you honestly believe love it or leave it is a good defense of the electoral college? Not at all. Love Wyoming, don?t leave it. It is part of America, an important part. I am not suggesting leaving America, just going to Wyoming. Do not resent the residents there, join them. They are good people. I have been there (family history tour.) The people of Wyoming are a treasure. >>? is that it protects minorities against majority rule. Minorities deserve protection from majority rule, which is fascism. All minorities deserve protection. >?..I wasn't aware you were in favor of affirmative action to favor minorities? All minorities deserve protection, regardless of their color. I favor all minorities and believe all should be protected. All people should be treated equally, regardless of minority status. >? but Wyoming is lily white, only 2.47% of the population is Native American and 1.8% black? Why is that relevant please? Do you have DNA evidence to support that claim? >?I am quite certain that isn't true, but if it was that would mean a coalition of states is a bad idea and a coalition of people would work much better? So we are told in the communist dictatorships. The brutal communist dictatorship which launched the covid plague and threatened anyone who leaked information about covid goes out of its way to differentiate itself from the Republic of China by calling itself the People?s Republic of China. The People?s Republic of China, headed by President Xi attempted to cover up the virus, which enabled its murderous spread across the planet. If the majority rules, the minorities will not like the rules the majority imposes upon them. Too often it turns to two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for dinner. The American system is great. >> it protects minority views in less populated places >?Even if you accept the very dubious proposition that rich people should have more voting rights then poor people that still makes no sense? I don?t hold the view that rich people should have more voting rights than the poor. The minority of voters who live in less populated areas are not richer than their more crowded counterparts. One need not be rich to live in Wyoming. >?because land ownership is just one of many forms of wealth? Sure but one need not own land to live in Wyoming. >?Why does how much land one person owns give him 66.7 times more voting heft? It doesn?t. The landowner and non-landowner?s vote counts the same everywhere in that state. >? but another person's expensive Manhattan penthouse or gold or S&P 500 stocks does not similarly enhance his citizenship? It doesn?t. The penthouse/gold/500 owner?s vote counts the same as the non-owner everywhere in that state. >> Regarding Wyoming: they are smarter on average than we are. >?There is an existence proof that they are not. In 2016 Wyoming went for Trump. QED So smarter people? eh, do explain please? Their average SAT scores? on second thought, never mind. Any time the name of a politician or a party is mentioned in the context of science, the credibility of that post drops by half (spike-ism (free of charge (you?re welcome.))) > Have some respect. >?From this day forward I solemnly swear to give Trump supporters all the respect they deserve. John K Clark Heh. OK, sure. You reserve the right to assign anyone you wish to that status I presume. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 18:40:02 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 13:40:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mississippi flag Message-ID: Followup to my earlier post about our legislature's getting of the confederate flag on part of it. Most in the legislature, and the governor, wanted to stick it to the voters to vote on changing the flag. Everybody knew what they meant: several years ago there was a vote and it was about 2 to 1 to keep it. They let majority rule and claimed that was morally right, despite 1/3 of the voters being highly offended. but somehow, with the impetus of the NCAA, the legislature voted to change it. Do we think that another vote of the people would have gone any differently this time? HA!! ROFL This was certainly not the best way to gain minority rights, but it worked. Shame on us - NCAA running our state - indeed! bill w bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 19:42:03 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 12:42:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mississippi flag In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <018a01d6523b$31d3f1d0$957bd570$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >?but somehow, with the impetus of the NCAA, the legislature voted to change it. Do we think that another vote of the people would have gone any differently this time? HA!! ROFL This was certainly not the best way to gain minority rights, but it worked. Shame on us - NCAA running our state - indeed! bill w bill w BillW, sports run many states, not just Mississippi. Granted the southern take their sports seriously than most, but the important part is that minority rights won. In this case the 1/3 minority who voted for the flag change had twice as much influence in the state as the majority in the state. Well, that?s the beauty of democracy: the voters will be selecting a new state legislature in a few months. The USA is a republic, but the states are democracies. In the meantime, I see a reason to be very optimistic. Consider how life was as recently as a century ago. Economics dominated every aspect of life, including (perhaps especially) politics. This guy managed to win an election by promising? chickens. He?s offering chickens: https://iowaculture.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/great-depression-and-herbert-hoover/chicken Do you suppose chickens would steer an election today? I think not. Now society is generally prosperous, with the result being that we look to entertainers and sports figures to influence our government. At one time, politics was dominated by necessity. Now it is highly influenced by sports and entertainers. technology and science have enabled our politics to be dominated by playtime and leisure. Voters were hungry in the olden days. Most days are the olden days. In most of humanity?s history, most people were hungry. We are the lucky ones to be living in the new days. Life is good. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 20:02:11 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 15:02:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mississippi flag In-Reply-To: <018a01d6523b$31d3f1d0$957bd570$@rainier66.com> References: <018a01d6523b$31d3f1d0$957bd570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, I was living in the metropolis of Cheneyville. LA. pop. 700 or so when an election for U. S. Representative was being held in that parish. I am sure you know of Huey Long. Russell Long served in the U S Senate for quite some time. Anyhow, Earl (then governor of LA, for the third time,having walked out of the state mental hospital saying he owned it) came through our town on a flatbed truck, handing out hams and buckets of lard. A country band played. Sadly, I was such a snob at the time, I did not want to see a drunken man in his wifebeater undershirt make a fool of himself, and us. My sister went and told me about it. My uncle was to have run against him, but in the middle of the campaign came down with stress backaches which put him in the hospital, and heralded the stress backaches I would have in grad school. Earl's house was a part of his image. On the outside it was pure country low class. On the inside it had all the modern conveniences. Earl won easily, but died of a heart attack before he could serve. Who said "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." Hoover was and was not said to have said it, but it was the way things were done in the South in the 30s through the 50s. I wonder what percentage of the Blacks' votes were bought. I am guessing very high. There is talk of campaign irregularities nowadays, but they couldn't hold a candle to those in the past. bill w On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 2:44 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > > > >?but somehow, with the impetus of the NCAA, the legislature voted to > change it. Do we think that another vote of the people would have gone any > differently this time? HA!! ROFL > > > > This was certainly not the best way to gain minority rights, but it > worked. Shame on us - NCAA running our state - indeed! bill w > > > > > > bill w > > > > > > BillW, sports run many states, not just Mississippi. Granted the southern > take their sports seriously than most, but the important part is that > minority rights won. In this case the 1/3 minority who voted for the flag > change had twice as much influence in the state as the majority in the > state. Well, that?s the beauty of democracy: the voters will be selecting > a new state legislature in a few months. The USA is a republic, but the > states are democracies. > > > > In the meantime, I see a reason to be very optimistic. Consider how life > was as recently as a century ago. Economics dominated every aspect of > life, including (perhaps especially) politics. This guy managed to win an > election by promising? chickens. He?s offering chickens: > > > > > https://iowaculture.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/great-depression-and-herbert-hoover/chicken > > > > Do you suppose chickens would steer an election today? I think not. Now > society is generally prosperous, with the result being that we look to > entertainers and sports figures to influence our government. At one time, > politics was dominated by necessity. Now it is highly influenced by sports > and entertainers. technology and science have enabled our politics to be > dominated by playtime and leisure. > > > > Voters were hungry in the olden days. Most days are the olden days. In > most of humanity?s history, most people were hungry. We are the lucky ones > to be living in the new days. > > > > Life is good. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 20:15:38 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 13:15:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] test case Message-ID: <01d101d6523f$e2ba3640$a82ea2c0$@rainier66.com> Hi BillK, this is an even better test case than California recent reopening of the bars, because the data is less obscured by other events. The British have decided to open their pubs today, perhaps to celebrate the 244th anniversary of good riddance to those bothersome rebellious colonies: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-reopening/beau tiful-to-have-a-pint-brilliant-to-get-a-haircut-england-reopens-after-lockdo wn-idUSKBN2442OK https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-ne ws-lockdown-end-uk-hairdressers-pubs-reopen-hotels/ I suspect this will lead to a big surge in C-19 cases for the same reason it apparently did here in the colonies. But sooner or later UK must open back up. Sooner or later, every economy everywhere on the planet must open back up, regardless of who is running the show. The same economic factors apply everywhere. So. Here we go. In a week we find out how many new cases, in a month we find out how many new deaths. BillK, regardless of the outcome, I give you my solemn word, should it go as badly as I suspect, I will never laugh at UK's or any nation's calamity, even those nations I don't like (I like UK (many of my own ancestors are from there (including one who sailed on the Mayflower.))) No one ever accuses the British of cowardice. Regardless of how this turns out, it will give the world an important dataset. BillK, best wishes to all of you, me lads. spike By the way BillK, what's up with that British flag? Does that not imply tacit support for the confederacy? Needs to be changed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 4 20:41:05 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 13:41:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mississippi flag In-Reply-To: References: <018a01d6523b$31d3f1d0$957bd570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <022001d65243$7241f520$56c5df60$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Mississippi flag >?Spike, I was living in the metropolis of Cheneyville. LA. pop. 700 or so when an election for U. S. Representative was being held in that parish?. but it was the way things were done in the South in the 30s through the 50s. I wonder what percentage of the Blacks' votes were bought. I am guessing very high. There is talk of campaign irregularities nowadays, but they couldn't hold a candle to those in the past. bill w BillW, this video is well worth the 13 minutes I invested in it. My bride and I visited Athens TN on the way to Thorn Hill TN where her great^2 grandmother is buried. I remember seeing the historical marker for the 1946 event: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=video+battle+of+athens+tn &t=chromentp&atb=v135-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DU5ut6yPrObw Is that a cool story or what? The good guys won: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 21:15:42 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 16:15:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mississippi flag In-Reply-To: <022001d65243$7241f520$56c5df60$@rainier66.com> References: <018a01d6523b$31d3f1d0$957bd570$@rainier66.com> <022001d65243$7241f520$56c5df60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I think maybe the Dept of Justice has improved a bit since those days. You know, we don't have to go that far back in history to find things radically different from today, although what went on in Athens is played out still all over the world, and maybe still in a few places here. If you visit Tenn again I'll meet you somewhere. bill w On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 3:43 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Mississippi flag > > > > >?Spike, I was living in the metropolis of Cheneyville. LA. pop. 700 or > so when an election for U. S. Representative was being held in that parish > ?. but it was the way things were done in the South in the 30s through > the 50s. I wonder what percentage of the Blacks' votes were bought. I am > guessing very high. There is talk of campaign irregularities nowadays, but > they couldn't hold a candle to those in the past. > > > > bill w > > > > > > > > BillW, this video is well worth the 13 minutes I invested in it. My bride > and I visited Athens TN on the way to Thorn Hill TN where her great^2 > grandmother is buried. I remember seeing the historical marker for the > 1946 event: > > > > > https://duckduckgo.com/?q=video+battle+of+athens+tn&t=chromentp&atb=v135-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DU5ut6yPrObw > > > > Is that a cool story or what? The good guys won: > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946) > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 22:07:57 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 15:07:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again Message-ID: wrote: snip > No worries, you are so pleasant about it and refrain from campaigning in the wrong place. The reason I don't say much is not good. The problem is in the poor economic outlook of the red state voters. They have become irrational because their future looks bleak. In the stone age, the solution to an economic problem (resource crisis) was to go to war, kill the neighbors, and take their resources. I know that by historical standards people are well off. But living things respond to relative stimulus and a very large number of the red state voters face a life perhaps not of poverty, but they are not doing close to as well as their parents. This makes them subject to the spread of xenophobic memes and makes them likely to support irrational leaders since that was a winning combination for a million years in the stone age. I can see what led up to the unpleasant situation in the red states, shipping manufacturing to low labor cost markets, and importing low-wage people for the jobs that could not be sent offshore, like meat processing. But this knowledge, so far, is just depressing. I have no solutions, so from my viewpoint, the situation is bad and can be expected to get worse indefinitely. > I don't necessarily disagree with John either on some things. I definitely disagree on the value of the US system: in my view it's great. It prevents totalitarianism. Can you think of any other country with a constitution that went totalitarianism? snip > Ja I am told this, but in my view POTUS isn't a leader, and I don't suppose that that office should be a leader. POTUS is a politician. Most places in the world, and for most of the US history, the POTUS was both a politician AND a leader. I would say the current one is not much of either, but I also have to say that we have what the dissatisfied want because that's the way a million years of stone age evolution shaped us. Some years ago I predicted that the Chinese would not start a war as long as their economic outlook was looking good. I don't know how they will recover from the current set of problems. Hope they do, but it's hard to say. > An example of a leader would be people like Sal Khan, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, those kinda guys. At least one of those you mention is not the sort of leader anyone sensible would want. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 22:24:27 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 17:24:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] poem for transhumanists and futurists Message-ID: Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits - and then Remold it nearer to the Hearts's Desire! Rubaiyat bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 22:52:46 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 18:52:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 2:23 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >?But it doesn't even matter because even if it's true it would in no way >> change the fact that the healthcare system in the USA sucks compared to the >> rest of the world? > > > *> I see, so the method is to establish that judgment as the baseline > fact, and any observation to the contrary is irrelevant unless it conforms > to the assumption. * > The baseline is not an assumption.The baseline comes from 2 FACTS: 1) The US spends far FAR *FAR* more on healthcare than any other country. 2) Despite spending that vast amount of money the US only has the 38th longest life expectancy in the world. You claim the flaw in our healthcare system is in medical education and then you claim the flaw is in the drug testing part of the healthcare system, I don't really think either of those is the most significant flaw but it's not worth debating because even if true it wouldn't change the 2 facts stated above. A good healthcare system would spend the least amount of money and get the longest life expectancy, but the US spends by far the largest amount of money on healthcare and yet it only has the 38th longest life expectancy. So obviously something is very seriously wrong, the system is flawed. So at this point I think it might be wise to show a little humility and admit that we don't know everything and some other countries might be able to do some things better than we can. So let's swallow our pride and learn from them. >?If true, which I doubt, it just means the US is wasting that drug testing >> money pushing paper and not on helping patients live longer? > > > > *> I hear that turn of phrase often, but it always causes me to wonder > where they push the paper to? Does it suggest the half billion it costs to > bring a new drug to market is not used for testing efficacy?* > I don't know where they're pushing the papers to, but if they're using all that money for testing efficacy then obviously their testing sucks because 37 countries are spending far less and getting far more. So that's pretty damn ineffective efficacy testing! >?..I wasn't aware you were in favor of affirmative action to favor >> minorities? > > > *> All minorities deserve protection,* > Who is protecting those poor second class citizens who get 66.7 times fewer citizenship rights? >? but Wyoming is lily white, only 2.47% of the population is Native >> American and 1.8% black? > > > *> Why is that relevant please? * > Beats the hell out of me, but then I'm not the one who made the ridiculous claim that the electoral college protects minority rights. >?I am quite certain that isn't true, but if it was that would mean a c >> oalition of states is a bad idea and a coalition of people would work >> much better? > > > *> So we are told in the communist dictatorships.* > Do you mean "communist dictatorships" like those in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, Iceland, Israel, SouthKorea, Sweden, France, Malta, Canada, Norway, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Andorra, Finland, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, UnitedKingdom, European Union, Cyprus, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Costa Rica, Chile, Czech Republic, Barbados and Lebanon? Every single one of these countries spends far FAR less per capita on healthcare than the USA does and the citizens of every single one of these countries live longer than Americans do. Don't you think that maybe just maybe the US could learn something from them? Or do you continue to think there is no need to change a thing because we've already got our healthcare working just perfectly despite what the data clearly shows? > *> The minority of voters who live in less populated areas* [...] > I don't even know what "minority" means in this context. If I'm the only one living in a state with a large land area then I'm the majority of the population. And besides as you point out, people are able to move, so those who live in less populated areas can always move to more populated areas. > >? land ownership is just one of many forms of wealth? > > > *> Sure but one need not own land to live in Wyoming.* > If it's not land area then what the hell is the secret magical quality that makes people who live in Wyoming 66.7 times better than people who live in California?! Could the secret sauce be that people who live in Wyoming are 66.7 times as likely to be MAGA Hatter gun nuts? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 00:08:39 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 19:08:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0D8B41AD-5AB2-430B-8565-FF8F620C43E6@gmail.com> > Can you think of any other country with a constitution that went > totalitarianism? Would you consider modern Russia to be totalitarian? They have a constitution. There was that pesky constitution that the Nazis managed to sidestep in Germany. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic Here?s a bit for you: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism ? Constitutions in authoritarian regimes Authoritarian regimes often adopt "the institutional trappings" of democracies, such as constitutions.[17] Constitutions in authoritarian states may serve a variety of roles, including "operating manual" (describing how the government is to function); "billboard" (signal of regime's intent), "blueprint" (outline of future regime plans), and "window dressing" (material designed to obfuscate, such as provisions setting forth freedoms that are not honored in practice).[18] Authoritarian constitutions may help legitimize, strengthen, and consolidate regimes.[19] For example, an authoritarian constitution "that successfully coordinates government action and defines popular expectations can also help consolidate the regime's grip on power by inhibiting re coordination on a different set of arrangements."[20] Unlike democratic constitutions, authoritarian constitutions do not set direct limits on executive authority; however, in some cases such documents may function as ways for elites to protect their own property rights or constrain autocrats' behavior.[21] ?The concept of "authoritarian constitutionalism" has been developed by legal scholar Mark Tushnet.[22] Tushnet distinguishes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes from "liberal constitutionalist" regimes ("the sort familiar in the modern West, with core commitments to human rights and self-governance implemented by means of varying institutional devices") and from purely authoritarian regimes (which reject the idea of human rights or constraints on leaders' power).[22] He describes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes as (1) authoritarian dominant-party states that (2) impose sanctions (such as libel judgments) against, but do not arbitrarily arrest, political dissidents; (3) permits "reasonably open discussion and criticism of its policies"; (4) hold "reasonably free and fair elections," without systemic intimidation, but "with close attention to such matters as the drawing of election districts and the creation of party lists to ensure as best it can that it will prevail?and by a substantial margin"; (4) reflect at least occasional responsiveness to public opinion; and (5) create "mechanisms to ensure that the amount of dissent does not exceed the level it regards as desirable."[22] Tushnet cites Singapore as an example of an authoritarian constitutionalist state, and connects the concept to that of hybrid regimes.[22]? Do we want to go by the ?democracy index?? Anything below a 4 on their 10 point scale is considered Authoritarian. A rank #1 would be most democratic and rank #167 would be least democratic (most authoritarian). #167 North Korea ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_North_Korea #166 Democratic Republic of the Congo ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo#Current_Constitution #165 Central African Republic ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Central_African_Republic #164 Syria ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Syria #163 Chad ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Chad #162 T?rkmenistan? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Turkmenistan #161 Equitorial Guinea ? https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Equatorial_Guinea_2012.pdf?lang=en #159A Tajikistan ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Tajikistan #159B Saudi Arabia ? MONARCHY #158 Yemen ? it had a constitution which was suspended during the civil war and has been delayed indefinitely to keep the ?president? in power, as long as he pleases ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Yemen So, best 8/10? A constitution is a piece of paper unless people consider it to be important. I think your statement needs nuance, at least a little bit. Finally, per the Freedom Index, the US isn?t doing too hot. #25, we USians are classified as living in a flawed democracy. ?Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.[6]? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiberal_democracy ?An illiberal democracy, also called a partial democracy, flawed democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy or guided democracy,[1] is a governing system in which although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an "open society". There are many countries "that are categorized as neither 'free' nor 'not free', but as 'probably free', falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes".[2]This may be because a constitution limiting government powers exists, but those in power ignore its liberties, or because an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties does not exist.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 00:14:16 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 17:14:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <029301d65261$3a8db880$afa92980$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat >?1) The US spends far FAR FAR more on healthcare than any other country? These costs include facelifts, hair implants, butt lifts, boob jobs, liposuction, gender reassignments and so forth. Remove all that and what do we spend? >?2) Despite spending that vast amount of money the US only has the 38th longest life expectancy in the world. None of that stuff listed above extends life. Medical care does more than extend life. >? might be wise to show a little humility and admit that we don't know everything and some other countries might be able to do some things better than we can. So let's swallow our pride and learn from them? The obvious way to reduce spending on health care is to stop requiring a qualification process for new medications. Allow anyone to bring any medication to market. That would reduce drug costs to a fraction of what they are now. Most countries do not have anything analogous to that process in the USA. ? >?I don't know where they're pushing the papers to, but if they're using all that money for testing efficacy then obviously their testing sucks because 37 countries are spending far less and getting far more. So that's pretty damn ineffective efficacy testing! Can?t we just coattail on their system? >>?..I wasn't aware you were in favor of affirmative action to favor minorities? > All minorities deserve protection, >?Who is protecting those poor second class citizens who get 66.7 times fewer citizenship rights? Those are neither second class citizens nor minorities. >>>? but Wyoming is lily white, only 2.47% of the population is Native American and 1.8% black? >>? Why is that relevant please? >?Beats the hell out of me, but then I'm not the one who made the ridiculous claim that the electoral college protects minority rights. You mention racial data in Wyoming. Why is that relevant please? Wyoming is one of the smartest, and in some years the smartest state in the union by the only objective metric we have: average SAT scores. My home state is Florida, which is middle of the pack. How did your state do, compared to Wyoming? Other persistent powerhouses in SAT: Utah, Idaho, Montana. Those states spend the least and do the most. >? Every single one of these countries spends far FAR less per capita on healthcare than the USA does and the citizens of every single one of these countries live longer than Americans do? People with money in those countries travel to the USA to get top-notch medical care, both for cosmetic and for health purposes. >? Don't you think that maybe just maybe the US could learn something from them? Or do you continue to think there is no need to change a thing because we've already got our healthcare working just perfectly despite what the data clearly shows? Filter out the cosmetic stuff, come back when you have numbers. >> ?The minority of voters who live in less populated areas [...] >?.I don't even know what "minority" means in this context? I do. There are fewer people in less populated states. Minority means fewer people. Minorities should be protected. >?If I'm the only one living in a state with a large land area then I'm the majority of the population? But a minority of the US population. Don?t get hung up on land area, for that really is irrelevant. The fewer people in a minority state have more control over a state government in the United States of America. So, they have more influence. Why is that so hard to grasp? If you really think this is unfair, start a party with the platform to overthrow the constitution. >? And besides as you point out, people are able to move, so those who live in less populated areas can always move to more populated areas? Why would they want to? Those few people in Wyoming control two senators and three EC votes. Wyoming people are smarter than us. They are really nice people out there too. You would like them. I do. >?If it's not land area then what the hell is the secret magical quality that makes people who live in Wyoming 66.7 times better than people who live in California?! Those few people control two senators and three EC votes. Wyoming people are smarter than Californians. >?Could the secret sauce be that people who live in Wyoming are 66.7 times as likely to be MAGA Hatter gun nuts? John K Clark You were doing so well right up to the end. With the revelation in the last sentence that everything is STILL all about politics, you are STILL campaigning, your credibility dropped to half what it was. Notice nothing I wrote is partisan in any way. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 00:24:54 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 17:24:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: <00ee01d65224$774f3bf0$65edb3d0$@rainier66.com> References: <00ee01d65224$774f3bf0$65edb3d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:00 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *On Behalf Of *SR Ballard via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. > > >??Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition of > their scientific achievement? SR Ballard > > > > It seems to have come in vogue to erase history, perhaps in support of an > effort to revise it. > Renaming places and institutions is not erasing history. Rewriting history textbooks to omit mention of major things, and attempting to destroy or alter records, is erasing history. Nothing less is erasing history. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 00:34:19 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 19:34:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: <00ee01d65224$774f3bf0$65edb3d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Some of this rewriting needs to be done. If you have ever read books like "What I didn't learn in school", then you know that history as taught in schools has in many cases been heavily edited, and not by unbiased people (especially in Texas). Nothing is written about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington that is bad, especially in high school. The best you can get is a few stories from your history teacher but those are never in textbooks. bill w On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 7:26 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:00 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> > *On Behalf Of *SR Ballard via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. >> >> >??Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition >> of their scientific achievement? SR Ballard >> >> >> >> It seems to have come in vogue to erase history, perhaps in support of an >> effort to revise it. >> > > Renaming places and institutions is not erasing history. > > Rewriting history textbooks to omit mention of major things, and > attempting to destroy or alter records, is erasing history. Nothing less > is erasing history. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 00:48:04 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 17:48:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: <00ee01d65224$774f3bf0$65edb3d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002101d65265$f1a07e50$d4e17af0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:00 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. >??Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement? SR Ballard It seems to have come in vogue to erase history, perhaps in support of an effort to revise it. >?Renaming places and institutions is not erasing history. >?Rewriting history textbooks to omit mention of major things, and attempting to destroy or alter records, is erasing history. Nothing less is erasing history. Ja. If we indulge in judging people from the past by our ethics and mores of today, we should expect future people to do the same to us. This is bad news for cryonics patients. Reasoning: from the point of view of now, everyone was an ethical cripple in the past. From the point of view of someone from 5 centuries ago, we are all morally bankrupt in every way that mattered to them, so the generalization works pretty well both ways. We should judge people by the standards of their times, and hope future people do the same for us. We don?t even know what we are doing now that will be considered scandalous in 100 years. Here?s a fun challenge: what practices or beliefs do we accept today which will completely discredit us in the eyes of our great^2 grandchildren? I will try a few, not necessarily in order: 1. The use of any kind of disposable plastic 2. Having more than 2 children (siring or bearing) 3. Eating meat 4. The use of spices (the kind that require land to grow) 5. Crowding into overpacked urban areas None of these are considered unethical or immoral today to the mainstream, but today?s solutions are tomorrow?s problems. All of these can lead to severe future problems in some way. What else might go on this list? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 00:52:30 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 17:52:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: <00ee01d65224$774f3bf0$65edb3d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yes, but the rewriting to be done there adds in major things that were omitted: the opposite of erasing history. For instance, yes George Washington was a slave owner - and he could not have done what he did had he set his slaves free as soon as he gained ownership of them. On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 5:35 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Some of this rewriting needs to be done. If you have ever read books like > "What I didn't learn in school", then you know that history as taught in > schools has in many cases been heavily edited, and not by unbiased people > (especially in Texas). Nothing is written about Abraham Lincoln or George > Washington that is bad, especially in high school. The best you can get is > a few stories from your history teacher but those are never in textbooks. > bill w > > > > On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 7:26 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 10:00 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> > *On Behalf Of *SR Ballard via extropy-chat >>> *Subject:* [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. >>> >>> >??Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition >>> of their scientific achievement? SR Ballard >>> >>> >>> >>> It seems to have come in vogue to erase history, perhaps in support of >>> an effort to revise it. >>> >> >> Renaming places and institutions is not erasing history. >> >> Rewriting history textbooks to omit mention of major things, and >> attempting to destroy or alter records, is erasing history. Nothing less >> is erasing history. >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 01:08:27 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 20:08:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <029301d65261$3a8db880$afa92980$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> <029301d65261$3a8db880$afa92980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <763E22C4-1768-4D4C-968C-5E0B5252010A@gmail.com> I think Spike sent this: > You mention racial data in Wyoming. Why is that relevant please? Wyoming is one of the smartest, and in some years the smartest state in the union by the only objective metric we have: average SAT scores. > > My home state is Florida, which is middle of the pack. How did your state do, compared to Wyoming? > > Other persistent powerhouses in SAT: Utah, Idaho, Montana. Those states spend the least and do the most. These four states also share an interesting common demographic: Mormons. https://utahvalley360.com/2015/07/13/top-10-states-mormons/ As of 2015: # 1: Utah, 55% Mormon # 2: Idaho, 19% Mormon # 3: Wyoming, 9% Mormon & #8: Montana, 4% Mormon Feel free to trawl through the data on the SAT site to confirm, but the actual top states are: #1 Minnesota: 1295 #2 Wisconsin: 1291 #3 Iowa: 1275 #4 Missouri: 1271 #5 Kansas: 1260 #6 North Dakota: 1256 #7 Nebraska: 1253 #8 Kentucky: 1247 #9 Mississippi: 1242 #10 Utah: 1238 #11 Wyoming: 1230 #12 Tennessee: 1228 #13 South Dakota: 1216 #14 Arkansas: 1208 #15 Colorado: 1201 And just for fun, #16 Louisiana: 1198 There seems to be something odd going on. A form of self-selection bias, where in states with poor educational attainment, lower level students don?t take the SAT, because they have no dreams of college. A look at the ?best states? for education ranking shows a very different picture. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/prek-12 I would be very amused by someone with a firm grasp of stats finding the correlation between various factors in the above data. Or even I might do it (badly) and share some graphs with y?all. SR Ballard > On Jul 4, 2020, at 7:14 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat > > > >?1) The US spends far FAR FAR more on healthcare than any other country? > > These costs include facelifts, hair implants, butt lifts, boob jobs, liposuction, gender reassignments and so forth. Remove all that and what do we spend? > > >?2) Despite spending that vast amount of money the US only has the 38th longest life expectancy in the world. > > None of that stuff listed above extends life. Medical care does more than extend life. > > > >? might be wise to show a little humility and admit that we don't know everything and some other countries might be able to do some things better than we can. So let's swallow our pride and learn from them? > > The obvious way to reduce spending on health care is to stop requiring a qualification process for new medications. Allow anyone to bring any medication to market. That would reduce drug costs to a fraction of what they are now. Most countries do not have anything analogous to that process in the USA. > > ? > > >?I don't know where they're pushing the papers to, but if they're using all that money for testing efficacy then obviously their testing sucks because 37 countries are spending far less and getting far more. So that's pretty damn ineffective efficacy testing! > > Can?t we just coattail on their system? > > > >>?..I wasn't aware you were in favor of affirmative action to favor minorities? > > > All minorities deserve protection, > > >?Who is protecting those poor second class citizens who get 66.7 times fewer citizenship rights? > > Those are neither second class citizens nor minorities. > > > > > >>>? but Wyoming is lily white, only 2.47% of the population is Native American and 1.8% black? > > >>? Why is that relevant please? > > >?Beats the hell out of me, but then I'm not the one who made the ridiculous claim that the electoral college protects minority rights. > > nd the citizens of every single one of these countries live longer than Americans do? > > People with money in those countries travel to the USA to get top-notch medical care, both for cosmetic and for health purposes. > > >? Don't you think that maybe just maybe the US could learn something from them? Or do you continue to think there is no need to change a thing because we've already got our healthcare working just perfectly despite what the data clearly shows? > > Filter out the cosmetic stuff, come back when you have numbers. > >> ?The minority of voters who live in less populated areas [...] > >?.I don't even know what "minority" means in this context? > > I do. There are fewer people in less populated states. Minority means fewer people. Minorities should be protected. > > >?If I'm the only one living in a state with a large land area then I'm the majority of the population? > > But a minority of the US population. Don?t get hung up on land area, for that really is irrelevant. The fewer people in a minority state have more control over a state government in the United States of America. So, they have more influence. Why is that so hard to grasp? > > If you really think this is unfair, start a party with the platform to overthrow the constitution. > > >? And besides as you point out, people are able to move, so those who live in less populated areas can always move to more populated areas? > > Why would they want to? Those few people in Wyoming control two senators and three EC votes. Wyoming people are smarter than us. They are really nice people out there too. You would like them. I do. > > >?If it's not land area then what the hell is the secret magical quality that makes people who live in Wyoming 66.7 times better than people who live in California?! > > Those few people control two senators and three EC votes. Wyoming people are smarter than Californians. > > >?Could the secret sauce be that people who live in Wyoming are 66.7 times as likely to be MAGA Hatter gun nuts? John K Clark > > You were doing so well right up to the end. With the revelation in the last sentence that everything is STILL all about politics, you are STILL campaigning, your credibility dropped to half what it was. Notice nothing I wrote is partisan in any way. > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 01:14:22 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 18:14:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: <00ee01d65224$774f3bf0$65edb3d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004a01d65269$9e5a4c90$db0ee5b0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. Yes, but the rewriting to be done there adds in major things that were omitted: the opposite of erasing history. For instance, yes George Washington was a slave owner - and he could not have done what he did had he set his slaves free as soon as he gained ownership of them. Ja we get that, and we get Jefferson for the same reason: both those guys were slave owners and got rich (by the standards of the day) as a result. Why are we tearing down Lincoln? We have some kinds of ethical love/hate relations with historical figures, such as Leland Stanford. He risked a ton of money, built the transcontinental railroad, made skerjillions (which some consider wrong) but on the other hand, it enabled east/west travel and movement of material which is good, but it converted indigenous people?s hunting ground into farmland which is bad for those who hunted there but good for those who eat the crops grown there, so? Stanford is simultaneously a good guy and a bad guy. And what are we doing now which will be considered scandalous in 200 years? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 01:59:25 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 18:59:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <763E22C4-1768-4D4C-968C-5E0B5252010A@gmail.com> References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> <029301d65261$3a8db880$afa92980$@rainier66.com> <763E22C4-1768-4D4C-968C-5E0B5252010A@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00aa01d6526f$ea4a6580$bedf3080$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Feel free to trawl through the data on the SAT site to confirm, but the actual top states are: #1 Minnesota: 1295 #2 Wisconsin: 1291 #3 Iowa: 1275 #4 Missouri: 1271 #5 Kansas: 1260 #6 North Dakota: 1256 #7 Nebraska: 1253 #8 Kentucky: 1247 #9 Mississippi: 1242 #10 Utah: 1238 #11 Wyoming: 1230 #12 Tennessee: 1228 #13 South Dakota: 1216 #14 Arkansas: 1208 #15 Colorado: 1201 And just for fun, #16 Louisiana: 1198 Hi SR, This is the 2019 result: State EBRW Math Total Minnesota 636 648 1284 Wisconsin 635 648 1283 South Dakota 633 635 1268 North Dakota 627 636 1263 Nebraska 628 631 1260 Iowa 622 622 1244 Kansas 618 623 1241 Wyoming 623 615 1238 Mississippi 628 608 1237 Missouri 622 615 1236 Kentucky 620 612 1232 Utah 614 615 1230 Tennessee 618 602 1220 Louisiana 610 591 1200 Montana 603 596 1199 Minnesota did even better last year but Wisconsin is right on their tails. Louisiana moved up a notch from 16th to 15th. Florida dropped to 46th ranked (so I feel really dumb) but I was born in Kentucky which held at number 11. >?There seems to be something odd going on. A form of self-selection bias, where in states with poor educational attainment, lower level students don?t take the SAT, because they have no dreams of college? >?I would be very amused by someone with a firm grasp of stats finding the correlation between various factors in the above data. Or even I might do it (badly) and share some graphs with y?all. >?SR Ballard I recall now that there is lower spending per student on education in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Montana. If you compensate for that, those four states always top the list in education per dollar. Compensating for dollars per student drives the spendy states such as California even lower than the already pathetic 33rd place (California does not have mandatory participation in SAT (oh dear, we are so dumb.)) On the other hand? I would stack California?s elite students against any state?s elite students. Cool a competition. Play ball! It occurred to me we need to take into account the ACT, which is pretty similar to the SAT. Some states use that for college admissions instead of SAT. The different levels of participation is important. It isn?t clear how to compensate for that, but I might suggest just taking the top 1% of scorers in each state and comparing elite students in each state. If a state has only 4% of its students participating, it must put up a quarter of those who tested to get us their top 1%. Here?s a thought for you. Imagine we temporarily abandon objective measures of student performance and use the imagination. Some correlations will be easy: high money areas will have high performing students. That was easy. Now let?s think about population density. The super-densely populated areas are not conducive to optimal education: inner city schools have inner city problems. They don?t produce the most or the best scholars. The extremely sparse areas don?t either: students have fewer opportunities because their schools are smaller, fewer classes available and so on. So? I am theorizing (without data) that there is some optimal population density for best educational outcome. We don?t know what that density is, but I would be interested in your speculations. My best guess is the most optimal educational arrangement with regard to population density is a typical suburban neighborhood, with single-family homes but not a lot of space between them, such as one finds in any typical American suburban area. Ideas please? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 02:26:24 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 19:26:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] periodicity? Message-ID: <00c001d65273$ae311fe0$0a935fa0$@rainier66.com> This is covid deaths per day from California: I see what looks like periodicity with fewer deaths (by a lot) on one or two days a week. Why would that be? It doesn?t look random to me. The data on new cases per day doesn?t show that pattern. Very puzzlin?. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 18053 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 03:29:34 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 22:29:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] periodicity? In-Reply-To: <00c001d65273$ae311fe0$0a935fa0$@rainier66.com> References: <00c001d65273$ae311fe0$0a935fa0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Are these the days the deaths actually occur, or when the data reaches a central location? Many places don?t parse data on weekends, as office workers get weekends off. The infection numbers in my area show a trend to drop Saturday, way down Sunday, pretty low Monday, way high on Tuesday. SR Ballard > On Jul 4, 2020, at 9:26 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > This is covid deaths per day from California: > > > > I see what looks like periodicity with fewer deaths (by a lot) on one or two days a week. Why would that be? It doesn?t look random to me. The data on new cases per day doesn?t show that pattern. > > Very puzzlin?. > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 03:36:46 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 20:36:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep Message-ID: <00dd01d6527d$82f4cfc0$88de6f40$@rainier66.com> Keith a comment you made earlier is rattling around in my brain. You commented about an paper you wrote regarding evolutionary psychology, how humans today have stone age genetic programming with modern weapons, and how you have had a hard time convincing people it is true. I think most people who hear that recognize the distinct ring of truth in the notion. Do elaborate on your having a hard time convincing people it is true please. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 05:34:10 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 22:34:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. Message-ID: wrote: snip > Ja we get that, and we get Jefferson for the same reason: both those guys were slave owners and got rich (by the standards of the day) as a result. You really should check the history. Jefferson died deeply in debt. He left instructions to free his slaves, but his will was overturned and the slaves sold because he was in debt. Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 11:07:33 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 07:07:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: <029301d65261$3a8db880$afa92980$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> <029301d65261$3a8db880$afa92980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 8:17 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >?1) The US spends far FAR *FAR* more on healthcare than any other country >> ? > > > > *> These costs include facelifts, hair implants, butt lifts, boob jobs, > liposuction, gender reassignments and so forth. * > So you've given up on the larger murder rate in the US to explain the ridiculously high medical costs in the US and now you're going to throw this at the wall and see if that sticks. It doesn't. People in other countries also have hair implants, butt lifts, boob jobs, liposuction and gender reassignments. *> Filter out the cosmetic stuff, come back when you have numbers.* > OK. The US spends 3,500 billion dollars on healthcare each year. The US spends 16 billion dollars on cosmetic surgery each year. A drop in the bucket, And as I said the US is not the only country that does cosmetic surgery, the global bill for cosmetic surgery is 50.5 billion dollars. I await you finding something else to throw at the wall to see if that sticks in your desperate attempt to avoid the obvious conclusion that our healthcare system is fundamentally flawed. *> The obvious way to reduce spending on health care is to stop requiring a > qualification process for new medications. Allow anyone to bring any > medication to market. That would reduce drug costs to a fraction of what > they are now. * > I actually think that could be a good idea, but it's irrelevant for this discussion because none of the 37 countries that spend less but live longer that I'm talking about does anything like that . > > *Most countries do not have anything analogous to that process in the > USA.* > Most countries are Third World countries, but I'm not talking about them. >?Who is protecting those poor second class citizens who get 66.7 times >> fewer citizenship rights? > > > *> Those are neither second class citizens nor minorities.* > Then why the hell do you insist on continuing to treat them as if they were? You can put all the spin on it you want but if you have 66.7 times as much voting power as I do then I'm a second-class citizen. It's like the difference between Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock and Class B; Class A has 500 times more voting power than Class B. *> You mention racial data in Wyoming. Why is that relevant please? * > You mentioned that the electoral college protects minorities. How is that logical please? *> Filter out the cosmetic stuff, come back when you have numbers.* > OK. The US spends 3,500 billion dollars on healthcare each year. The US spends 16 billion dollars on cosmetic surgery each year. A drop in the bucket. And as I said the US is not the only country that does cosmetic surgery, the global bill for cosmetic surgery is 50.5 billion dollars. > >> I don't even know what "minority" means in this context? > > *> I do. There are fewer people in less populated states. Minority means > fewer people. Minorities should be protected.* > There are fewer highly populated states than lightly populated states. So highly populated states are in the minority. Minorities should be protected. Stop laughing, my argument is no dumber than yours. And as you have pointed out more than once human beings have the ability to move, and they find it's far easier to move than to change their sex or their skin color. I don't quite see why linear distance from your neighbor turns one into a minority, especially in an age of instant communication. but if it does and you don't want to be a "minority" anymore then just move. > *> The fewer people in a minority state have more control over a state > government in the United States of America. So, they have more influence. > Why is that so hard to grasp?* > Why is it so hard to grasp that I'm talking about the federal government not the state government? >? And besides as you point out, people are able to move, so those who live >> in less populated areas can always move to more populated areas? > > > *> Why would they want to? * > For the same silly reason you said people in highly populated states should move to lightly populated states if they want to be treated fairly. > *Wyoming people are smarter than us.* > As I said before that statement is provably false. Wyoming went for Trump in 2016. > >?Could the secret sauce be that people who live in Wyoming are 66.7 times >> as likely to be MAGA Hatter gun nuts? John K Clark > > > *> You were doing so well right up to the end. With the revelation in the > last sentence that everything is STILL all about politics,* > Of course it's all about politics! There is absolutely nothing logical about the electoral college, nothing, the reason we have it is not because it makes any sort of sense but because compromises needed to be made 200 years ago to get the constitution approved. So I don't believe for 1 Nanosecond that you'd be churning out extremely lame excuses for the electoral college at anywhere near your current rate if California was as right wing conservative as Wyoming and Wyoming was as left wing liberal as California. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 13:35:27 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 06:35:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002d01d652d1$2584f000$708ed000$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 10:34 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Keith Henson Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. wrote: snip >...> Ja we get that, and we get Jefferson for the same reason: both those guys were slave owners and got rich (by the standards of the day) as a result. >...You really should check the history. Jefferson died deeply in debt. He left instructions to free his slaves, but his will was overturned and the slaves sold because he was in debt. Keith _______________________________________________ Ok cool thanks for that. I wasn't aware of it, but that was my own fault: I have visited Monticello (another family history tour) and there were lectures and displays. That factoid would likely have been mentioned somewhere but I missed it. We got the library of Congress out of the deal. spike From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 13:37:32 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 08:37:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> <029301d65261$3a8db880$afa92980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hey John, you?ve been saying: > Then why the hell do you insist on continuing to treat them as if they were? You can put all the spin on it you want but if you have 66.7 times as much voting power as I do then I'm a second-class citizen. But actually that means you are choosing to be a second class citizen. You have the choice and ability to become a first class citizen, but won?t take it. Why not? SR Ballard > On Jul 5, 2020, at 6:07 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > > Then why the hell do you insist on continuing to treat them as if they were? You can put all the spin on it you want but if you have 66.7 times as much voting power as I do then I'm a second-class citizen. It's like the difference between Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock and Class B; Class A has 500 times more voting power than Class B. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 13:57:34 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 06:57:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: <001c01d6519a$4b810b50$e28321f0$@rainier66.com> <006b01d6520e$02dbfe40$0893fac0$@rainier66.com> <014601d6522f$c6b80ea0$54282be0$@rainier66.com> <029301d65261$3a8db880$afa92980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004d01d652d4$3c95e850$b5c1b8f0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat >?As I said before that statement is provably false. Wyoming went for Trump in 2016? This entire post was not about medical anything. It was campaign literature. Most of us don?t read that stuff John. Disregard. >?Could the secret sauce be that people who live in Wyoming are 66.7 times as likely to be MAGA Hatter gun nuts? John K Clark > You were doing so well right up to the end. With the revelation in the last sentence that everything is STILL all about politics, >?Of course it's all about politics! There is absolutely nothing logical about the electoral college, nothing? John K Clark It isn?t to me. I consider medical costs a medical issue rather than politics. John I am not interested in your bitter political screeds, which use medical costs to promote your extremist views. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 14:13:07 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 09:13:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: <002d01d652d1$2584f000$708ed000$@rainier66.com> References: <002d01d652d1$2584f000$708ed000$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: We are witnessing a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Who is doing it? Fanatics and purists, to whom any tinge of badness is enough to demonize the whole person. Why do they get the press? Obvious - they are shouting the loudest and then of course TV loves them. What does this say about the opinions of the average person? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But public officials cannot, anymore, just ignore the extremists. They have to do or say something to validate the opinions of the extremists. I knew about Thomas Jefferson - the debt, slaves, and his black mistress. None of that made any difference to me. On balance (and who is interested in that anymore) he is one of the greatest people in history, and so was old George (to a much lesser extent, IMO). But we can go too far with this excusing. To still have a monument to the founder of the KKK - well, that's well beyond the pale (and who knows the meaning of 'pale'?) bill w On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 8:37 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 10:34 PM > To: ExI chat list > Cc: Keith Henson > Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. > > wrote: > > snip > > >...> Ja we get that, and we get Jefferson for the same reason: both those > guys were slave owners and got rich (by the standards of the day) as a > result. > > >...You really should check the history. Jefferson died deeply in debt. > He left instructions to free his slaves, but his will was overturned and > the > slaves sold because he was in debt. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > > Ok cool thanks for that. I wasn't aware of it, but that was my own fault: > I > have visited Monticello (another family history tour) and there were > lectures and displays. That factoid would likely have been mentioned > somewhere but I missed it. > > We got the library of Congress out of the deal. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 14:32:00 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 07:32:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] test case Message-ID: <009701d652d9$0bedc100$23c94300$@rainier66.com> BillK, I hear that Leicester kept their pubs closed as most of UK opened theirs yesterday: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53290314 This can provide perhaps the most valuable test cases available anywhere on the planet. It is a big enough city with reliable news sources, informed people, sufficient testing and medical resources, we can compare to other cities which opened. England has become the world's mine canary. It has long been my contention that all economies everywhere must re-open soon, otherwise they face even bigger problems than 2% of their population perishing of covid. At some point we need to be able to estimate the cost in lives to open vs the cost in lives to stay closed. California did that calculus and started opening recently, but it is too soon to know for sure the result. There is a weekend effect for both new cases and deaths, so late tomorrow we might have an indication of where California is going. By that time, the new cases from bars (if that is a big factor) might be measurable. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robot at ultimax.com Sun Jul 5 14:56:45 2020 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2020 10:56:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> It's a Russian Jewish thing from the Tsarist era. With a uppercase "P". Related to persecution / pogroms. If your question wasn't rhetorical, maybe you don't want to know? If you do want to, look up "Pale of Settlement" established by Catherine the "Great". You'd be surprised/depressed at how many common expressions have their roots in racism, repression and persecution. I never use "beyond the pale" for this reason. To avoid such mistakes and short circuits in thinking, I am always guided by George Orwell's wonderful essay, "Politics and the English Language". K3 On Sun, 5 Jul 2020 09:13:07 -0500, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Message: 9 > Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 09:13:07 -0500 > From: William Flynn Wallace > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. > [snip] > well, that's well beyond the pale (and who knows the > meaning of 'pale'?) > > bill w From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 15:24:39 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 10:24:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more Message-ID: Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so here?s a few thoughts: The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined that they did. A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is often called reaction formation). So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 15:27:19 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 10:27:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things In-Reply-To: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> References: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> Message-ID: A pale is a wooden or iron stake put up around some place to protect it. The fence is called a palisade. So 'beyond the pale' means outside of us - foreign, unwanted, dangerous etc. bill w On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:09 AM Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It's a Russian Jewish thing from the Tsarist era. With a uppercase "P". > Related to persecution / pogroms. If your question wasn't rhetorical, > maybe you don't want to know? If you do want to, look up "Pale of > Settlement" established by Catherine the "Great". > > You'd be surprised/depressed at how many common expressions have their > roots in racism, repression and persecution. I never use "beyond the > pale" for this reason. To avoid such mistakes and short circuits in > thinking, I am always guided by George Orwell's wonderful essay, > "Politics and the English Language". > > K3 > > On Sun, 5 Jul 2020 09:13:07 -0500, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > Message: 9 > > Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 09:13:07 -0500 > > From: William Flynn Wallace > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. > > > [snip] > > well, that's well beyond the pale (and who knows the > > meaning of 'pale'?) > > > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 15:42:12 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 08:42:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a word of it. I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. spike From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so here?s a few thoughts: The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined that they did. A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is often called reaction formation). So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 15:41:48 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 16:41:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] test case In-Reply-To: <009701d652d9$0bedc100$23c94300$@rainier66.com> References: <009701d652d9$0bedc100$23c94300$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Jul 2020 at 15:34, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > BillK, I hear that Leicester kept their pubs closed as most of UK opened theirs yesterday: > > https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53290314 > > This can provide perhaps the most valuable test cases available anywhere on the planet. It is a big enough city with reliable news sources, informed people, sufficient testing and medical resources, we can compare to other cities which opened. England has become the world?s mine canary. > > It has long been my contention that all economies everywhere must re-open soon, otherwise they face even bigger problems than 2% of their population perishing of covid. At some point we need to be able to estimate the cost in lives to open vs the cost in lives to stay closed. California did that calculus and started opening recently, but it is too soon to know for sure the result. There is a weekend effect for both new cases and deaths, so late tomorrow we might have an indication of where California is going. By that time, the new cases from bars (if that is a big factor) might be measurable. > > spike > _______________________________________________ No, Leicester is not a good test case. The whole city went back into lockdown because they had a big spike in Covid-19 cases and they are currently the worst in the country for infections. Best to watch the rest of the cities in England for varying rates of infections. Some were partying much more than others. The police have complained that crowds of drunks are ignoring social distancing. What a surprise! :) But certainly reopening businesses has to be done as soon as possible. Protect those especially at risk, but most of the population should be able to fight off infections, with help if needed. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 15:56:57 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 16:56:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things In-Reply-To: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> References: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Jul 2020 at 16:09, Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat wrote: > > It's a Russian Jewish thing from the Tsarist era. With a uppercase "P". > Related to persecution / pogroms. If your question wasn't rhetorical, > maybe you don't want to know? If you do want to, look up "Pale of > Settlement" established by Catherine the "Great". > > You'd be surprised/depressed at how many common expressions have their > roots in racism, repression and persecution. I never use "beyond the > pale" for this reason. To avoid such mistakes and short circuits in > thinking, I am always guided by George Orwell's wonderful essay, > "Politics and the English Language". > > K3 --------------------------------------- That's correct, but the origins of the term Pale were centuries before Catherine the Great, empress of Russia (1762?96). Quote: Other examples of pales include the English pales in Ireland and France. ?The Pale? in Ireland (so named after the late 14th century) was established at the time of Henry II?s expedition (1171?72) and consisted of the territories conquered by England, where English settlements and rule were most secure. The pale existed until the entire area was subjugated under Elizabeth I (reigned 1558?1603). Its area, which varied considerably depending upon the strength of the English authorities, included parts of the modern counties of Dublin, Louth, Meath, and Kildare. The Calais pale in northern France (1347?1558) had a perimeter extending from Gravelines in the east to Wissant in the west and enclosing a hinterland 6?9 miles (10?14 km) deep. -------------------- BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 16:00:41 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 09:00:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] test case In-Reply-To: <009701d652d9$0bedc100$23c94300$@rainier66.com> References: <009701d652d9$0bedc100$23c94300$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00ed01d652e5$6f89ab50$4e9d01f0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: test case >.BillK, I hear that Leicester kept their pubs closed as most of UK opened theirs yesterday: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53290314 >.This can provide perhaps the most valuable test cases available anywhere on the planet.spike Looks like the colonies will get some useful test data too: https://nypost.com/2020/07/04/smashed-outdoor-diners-steal-glassware-hoard-t ables-as-nyc-reopens/ Speculation: there are always people on every extreme (there are more than two extremes in every question.) In the covid question, there are those who miss the party life at the bar so much they are willing to risk catching and even spreading covid in order to get back to that. That is life to a segment of modern society. I am not among them, for I don't do the party life and I damn sure aren't willing to risk spreading covid to someone it might kill. >From what I hear, the party crowd is a mixed bag on mask/no mask. I don't really see how one could drink and seduce while wearing one, but I am not an authority on this. I defer to my superiors on these matters. There was a prominent researcher (from UK as I recall) who commented way back in early February that covid could not be stopped by science, by government, by anything less than some degree of herd immunity. For this he was repudiated and ostracized. He is looking more right all the time. Well, if so, the British pub crowd will demonstrate it for us, by comparing what happens in Leicester with surrounding cities. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 16:10:02 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 09:10:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] test case In-Reply-To: References: <009701d652d9$0bedc100$23c94300$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00f501d652e6$bd7426f0$385c74d0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ >...No, Leicester is not a good test case. The whole city went back into lockdown because they had a big spike in Covid-19 cases and they are currently the worst in the country for infections. >...Best to watch the rest of the cities in England for varying rates of infections. Some were partying much more than others. The police have complained that crowds of drunks are ignoring social distancing. What a surprise! :) >...But certainly reopening businesses has to be done as soon as possible. Protect those especially at risk, but most of the population should be able to fight off infections, with help if needed. BillK _______________________________________________ Cool thanks for that BillK. I am not up to speed on the details of British cities. Crowds of drunks ignoring social distancing: we have crowds of sober rioters committing felony larceny and arson. With that in the background, enforcing social distancing recommendations is hopeless. It is interesting to go back and see who wrote what in about late January or early February, when we were hearing of covid for the first time. There were those who predicted correctly that you can delay it, flatten the curve so that hospitals can handle the load and so on, but doing so would have enormous cost including loss of life from suicide and other social pathologies. I understand the reasoning of those who argue they might as well catch covid now, probably fight it off, develop immunity and get on with their lives without fear. People want their lives back. For some, a life in isolation is no life at all. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 16:20:04 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 09:20:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things In-Reply-To: References: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> Message-ID: <00f801d652e8$24a85430$6df8fc90$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat --------------------------------------- >...That's correct, but the origins of the term Pale were centuries before Catherine the Great, empress of Russia (1762?96). Quote: Other examples of pales include the English pales in Ireland and France... -------------------- BillK _______________________________________________ A long time ago, I was told of a particularly savage form of execution reserved for bad guys who did things like raping and murdering a child. They would get a wooden pole (or pale) with a blunt end kinda like a giant dildo, shove it up the miscreant's rear (impale him) set the pole upright and let gravity do its thing. Even a vague description of this form of execution would likely discourage perpetrators much more effectively than our wimpy lethal injections. I don't expect they needed to do that procedure often. The expression beyond the pale would be hyperbole indeed, referencing some form of execution worse than having a pale shoved up one's ass. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 16:50:56 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 11:50:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] test case In-Reply-To: <00f501d652e6$bd7426f0$385c74d0$@rainier66.com> References: <009701d652d9$0bedc100$23c94300$@rainier66.com> <00f501d652e6$bd7426f0$385c74d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I understand the reasoning of those who argue they might as well catch covid now, probably fight it off, develop immunity and get on with their lives without fear. People want their lives back. For some, a life in isolation is no life at all. spike *Extremely likely: this year will feature the greatest number of people earning the Darwin Award for dying in a particularly stupid way and helping to clean out the gene pool. bill w* On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 11:11 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > BillK via extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > > > >...No, Leicester is not a good test case. The whole city went back into > lockdown because they had a big spike in Covid-19 cases and they are > currently the worst in the country for infections. > > >...Best to watch the rest of the cities in England for varying rates of > infections. Some were partying much more than others. The police have > complained that crowds of drunks are ignoring social distancing. > What a surprise! :) > > >...But certainly reopening businesses has to be done as soon as possible. > Protect those especially at risk, but most of the population should be > able to fight off infections, with help if needed. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > > Cool thanks for that BillK. I am not up to speed on the details of > British cities. > > Crowds of drunks ignoring social distancing: we have crowds of sober > rioters committing felony larceny and arson. With that in the background, > enforcing social distancing recommendations is hopeless. > > It is interesting to go back and see who wrote what in about late January > or early February, when we were hearing of covid for the first time. There > were those who predicted correctly that you can delay it, flatten the curve > so that hospitals can handle the load and so on, but doing so would have > enormous cost including loss of life from suicide and other social > pathologies. > > I understand the reasoning of those who argue they might as well catch > covid now, probably fight it off, develop immunity and get on with their > lives without fear. People want their lives back. For some, a life in > isolation is no life at all. > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 16:56:16 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 11:56:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. spike I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these people. They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy efforts. In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't some of the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? Because they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite sure that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a > word of it. > > > > I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people > struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false > flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. > > > > My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): > > > > Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing > someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for > the wrong side. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace > *Subject:* [ExI] fanaticism, more > > > > Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find those > all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so > here?s a few thoughts: > > > > The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book about > it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is subsequently > ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will also make the > person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain way and even > slight deviations from it are not permitted. > > > > If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather > than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair > those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others > believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like > Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. > > > > A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to > have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined > that they did. > > > > A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are a > latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a > powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be > powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is > often called reaction formation). > > > > So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then the > strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully > opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people > ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. > > > > bill w > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jul 5 18:21:02 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 19:21:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 05/07/2020 15:13, billw wrote: > But we can go too far with this excusing.? To still have a monument to > the founder of the KKK - well, that's well beyond the pale (and who > knows the meaning of 'pale'?) My understanding is that in this context, it means 'fence'. But I may be wrong. -- Ben Zaiboc From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 21:41:00 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 17:41:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things In-Reply-To: <00f801d652e8$24a85430$6df8fc90$@rainier66.com> References: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> <00f801d652e8$24a85430$6df8fc90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 12:22 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *A long time ago, I was told of a particularly savage form of execution > reserved for bad guys who did things like raping and murdering a child. > They would get a wooden pole (or pale) with a blunt end kinda like a giant > dildo, shove it up the miscreant's rear (impale him) set the pole upright > and let gravity do its thing. Even a vague description of this form of > execution would likely discourage perpetrators much more effectively than > our wimpy lethal injections. I don't expect they needed to do that > procedure often.* > The real life inspiration for the Dracula myth , Vlad the Impaler (1428-1477), once impaled 20,000 Men women and children at the same time according to contemporary witnesses: *"**The sultan's army entered into the area of the impalements, which was seventeen stades long and seven stades wide. There were large stakes there on which, as it was said, about twenty thousand men, women, and children had been spitted, quite a sight for the Turks and the sultan himself. The sultan was seized with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive of his country a man who had done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical understanding of how to govern his realm and its people. And he said that a man who had done such things was worth much. The rest of the Turks were dumbfounded when they saw the multitude of men on the stakes. There were infants too affixed to their mothers on the stakes, and birds had made their nests in their entrails."* Vlad the Impaler John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 21:54:32 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 14:54:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep Message-ID: wrote: > Keith a comment you made earlier is rattling around in my brain. You commented about an paper you wrote regarding evolutionary psychology, how humans today have stone age genetic programming with modern weapons, and how you have had a hard time convincing people it is true. I think most people who hear that recognize the distinct ring of truth in the notion. I don't find that to be the case. Most people assume the "blank slate" model for humans, i.e., little or no understanding about human motivation such as status-seeking and they do not accept that humans have behavior switches that get flipped by external conditions. > Do elaborate on your having a hard time convincing people it is true please. I suspect that there is an evolved purposeful reluctance to insight. Too much insight may not be good for your genes. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 21:58:00 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 14:58:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things In-Reply-To: References: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> <00f801d652e8$24a85430$6df8fc90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <017101d65317$59ce3dd0$0d6ab970$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 12:22 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >>? A long time ago, I was told of a particularly savage form of execution reserved for bad guys who did things like raping and murdering a child? >?The real life inspiration for the Dracula myth , Vlad the Impaler (1428-1477), once impaled 20,000 Men women and children at the same time according to contemporary witnesses: >?"The sultan's army entered into the area of the impalements, which was seventeen stades long and seven stades wide? Vlad the Impaler John K Clark Owww damn. The capacity of humanity for inhumanity is astonishing. But I have a reason for hope. As recently as the middle of the last century, mass starvation was a very real threat in some places. Now it really isn?t, or it isn?t a huge threat. Keith?s model of the bleak future leading to war makes us stop and think: how grim does the future need to be in order to compel a society to go to war? If starvation is not a threat at all, immediate exposure to lethal elements are not a threat, but the other guy has better basketball shoes and somehow ended up with a rolex watch, is that sufficiently grim to risk everything? I think it isn?t. I can envision people having to travel a long distance to get supplies in Chicago?s food deserts, but not actually starving there. They may pull down statues and paint graffiti, but stop short of armed resistance for the most part. Evolutionary psychology might suggest our real troubles will not happen so long as people have the necessities of life. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 22:07:32 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 17:07:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things In-Reply-To: <017101d65317$59ce3dd0$0d6ab970$@rainier66.com> References: <26b54497017e14631c79328165f06526@ultimax.com> <00f801d652e8$24a85430$6df8fc90$@rainier66.com> <017101d65317$59ce3dd0$0d6ab970$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Evolutionary psychology might suggest our real troubles will not happen so long as people have the necessities of life. spike Maslow's hierarchy too. *except for fanatics/martyrs* On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 5:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things > > > > On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 12:22 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > >>? *A long time ago, I was told of a particularly savage form of > execution reserved for bad guys who did things like raping and murdering a > child?* > > > > > > >?The real life inspiration for the Dracula myth , Vlad the Impaler > (1428-1477), once impaled 20,000 Men women and children at the same time > according to contemporary witnesses: > > > > *>?"**The sultan's army entered into the area of the impalements, which > was seventeen stades long and seven stades wide?* > > > > Vlad the Impaler > > > > John K Clark > > > > > > Owww damn. > > > > The capacity of humanity for inhumanity is astonishing. But I have a > reason for hope. > > > > As recently as the middle of the last century, mass starvation was a very > real threat in some places. Now it really isn?t, or it isn?t a huge > threat. Keith?s model of the bleak future leading to war makes us stop and > think: how grim does the future need to be in order to compel a society to > go to war? If starvation is not a threat at all, immediate exposure to > lethal elements are not a threat, but the other guy has better basketball > shoes and somehow ended up with a rolex watch, is that sufficiently grim to > risk everything? > > > > I think it isn?t. I can envision people having to travel a long distance > to get supplies in Chicago?s food deserts, but not actually starving > there. They may pull down statues and paint graffiti, but stop short of > armed resistance for the most part. Evolutionary psychology might suggest > our real troubles will not happen so long as people have the necessities of > life. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 22:12:37 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 17:12:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ep In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Most people assume the "blank slate" model for humans, i.e., little or no understanding about human motivation such as status-seeking and they do not accept that humans have behavior switches that get flipped by external conditions. keith I would really like to see some data on these assertions, particularly the blank slate part (John Locke). People don't understand status-seeking? Really? I thought everybody understood showing off. By 'behavior switches' do you mean things like Pavlov's bell? This terminology is not familiar to me. bill w On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 4:57 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > wrote: > > > Keith a comment you made earlier is rattling around in my brain. You > commented about an paper you wrote regarding evolutionary psychology, how > humans today have stone age genetic programming with modern weapons, and > how > you have had a hard time convincing people it is true. I think most people > who hear that recognize the distinct ring of truth in the notion. > > I don't find that to be the case. Most people assume the "blank > slate" model for humans, i.e., little or no understanding about human > motivation such as status-seeking and they do not accept that humans > have behavior switches that get flipped by external conditions. > > > Do elaborate on your having a hard time convincing people it is true > please. > > I suspect that there is an evolved purposeful reluctance to insight. > Too much insight may not be good for your genes. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 5 22:17:11 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 15:17:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <018801d6531a$0811fce0$1835f6a0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 2:55 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Keith Henson Subject: [ExI] ep wrote: >>... Keith a comment you made earlier is rattling around in my brain. You commented about an paper you wrote regarding evolutionary psychology... >... Most people assume the "blank slate" model for humans, i.e., little or no understanding about human motivation such as status-seeking and they do not accept that humans have behavior switches that get flipped by external conditions. >>... Do elaborate on your having a hard time convincing people it is true please. >...I suspect that there is an evolved purposeful reluctance to insight. Too much insight may not be good for your genes. Keith _______________________________________________ That worries me. I haven't read the literature in the field and only sample Steven Pinker who is all the rage I understand. I don't see why the blank slate model is popular for humans, when it is perfectly clear to me people certainly are born with certain instincts. That this is true is so self-evidently obvious I am surprised it is questioned at all. That people have behavior switches that get flipped by external conditions must have a difficult time explaining why Germany instituted slavery and genocide in the 1930s. I am also worried you are right on with your comment regarding too much insight possibly being an example of evolutionary maladaptation. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 22:26:46 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 17:26:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ep In-Reply-To: <018801d6531a$0811fce0$1835f6a0$@rainier66.com> References: <018801d6531a$0811fce0$1835f6a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I am also worried you are right on with your comment regarding too much insight possibly being an example of evolutionary maladaptation. spike This is interesting. If evolution had anything to do with it, I'd rather think that not being able to see down into your depths is a better thing than being able to do so. An adaptation, not a maladaptation, that is. bill w On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 5:22 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 2:55 PM > To: ExI chat list > Cc: Keith Henson > Subject: [ExI] ep > > wrote: > > >>... Keith a comment you made earlier is rattling around in my brain. You > commented about an paper you wrote regarding evolutionary psychology... > > >... Most people assume the "blank slate" model for humans, i.e., little > or > no understanding about human motivation such as status-seeking and they do > not accept that humans have behavior switches that get flipped by external > conditions. > > >>... Do elaborate on your having a hard time convincing people it is true > please. > > >...I suspect that there is an evolved purposeful reluctance to insight. > Too much insight may not be good for your genes. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > > That worries me. I haven't read the literature in the field and only > sample > Steven Pinker who is all the rage I understand. I don't see why the blank > slate model is popular for humans, when it is perfectly clear to me people > certainly are born with certain instincts. That this is true is so > self-evidently obvious I am surprised it is questioned at all. > > That people have behavior switches that get flipped by external conditions > must have a difficult time explaining why Germany instituted slavery and > genocide in the 1930s. > > I am also worried you are right on with your comment regarding too much > insight possibly being an example of evolutionary maladaptation. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 23:07:40 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 18:07:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> Oh, I understand the fanaticism. I was a bit of a fanatic at one point. It is as was described. You have a deep-seated fear you are covering up. But the fear doesn?t have to match the action. Like if you?re strongly religious it doesn?t have to be from religious doubt, it could be a doubt about your physical health. You could be strongly anti-gay because you have an eating disorder. And so on. A classic is anti-gay because of sexual abuse of a boy by a man. SR Ballard > On Jul 5, 2020, at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. > > > > spike > > > > I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these people. They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy efforts. In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't some of the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? Because they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite sure that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w > > >> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a word of it. >> >> >> >> I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. >> >> >> >> My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): >> >> >> >> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM >> To: ExI chat list >> Cc: William Flynn Wallace >> Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more >> >> >> >> Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so here?s a few thoughts: >> >> >> The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. >> >> >> If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. >> >> >> A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined that they did. >> >> >> A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is often called reaction formation). >> >> >> So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. >> >> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 00:35:45 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 19:35:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> Message-ID: SR, what you are describing is called compensation. What I described is called overcompensation, in which the conscious and unconscious things are the same: the 100 lb weakling becomes a strong man. bill w On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 6:10 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Oh, I understand the fanaticism. I was a bit of a fanatic at one point. > > It is as was described. You have a deep-seated fear you are covering up. > > But the fear doesn?t have to match the action. Like if you?re strongly > religious it doesn?t have to be from religious doubt, it could be a doubt > about your physical health. You could be strongly anti-gay because you have > an eating disorder. And so on. > > A classic is anti-gay because of sexual abuse of a boy by a man. > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 5, 2020, at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing > someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for > the wrong side. > > > > spike > > > I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these people. > They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy efforts. > In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't some of > the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? Because > they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite sure > that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w > > On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a >> word of it. >> >> >> >> I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people >> struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false >> flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. >> >> >> >> My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): >> >> >> >> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing >> someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for >> the wrong side. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf >> Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> *Sent:* Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM >> *To:* ExI chat list >> *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace >> *Subject:* [ExI] fanaticism, more >> >> >> >> Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find >> those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so >> here?s a few thoughts: >> >> >> >> The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book >> about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is >> subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will >> also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain >> way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. >> >> >> >> If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather >> than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair >> those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others >> believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like >> Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. >> >> >> >> A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to >> have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined >> that they did. >> >> >> >> A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are >> a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a >> powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be >> powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is >> often called reaction formation). >> >> >> >> So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then >> the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully >> opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people >> ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. >> >> >> >> 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 > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 01:25:08 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 21:25:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Jimmy 'the Greek' Snyder In-Reply-To: <05a0a51941c2ccd2857a189866b1f1df@ultimax.com> References: <05a0a51941c2ccd2857a189866b1f1df@ultimax.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 2:09 PM Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > 1. /Marooned in Realtime/, (1992). Changed my worldview. > ### Yes, Peacewar and Marooned are two of the most amazing and worldview-changing books I ever read. > > 2. Sounds like /The Ophiuchi Hotline/, but there are quite a few other > stories from that common setting, too. > ### It's from The Golden Globe specifically but yes, Varley is very much into private policing in many of his other works, which is why I am so much into Varley's books. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 01:41:40 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 21:41:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Jimmy 'the Greek' Snyder In-Reply-To: <001d01d63c44$8c62b490$a5281db0$@rainier66.com> References: <20200605233514.Horde.IvWMXpUbX7VSTjrMWayWFvH@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <002801d63bfe$5bb1cfc0$13156f40$@rainier66.com> <2E23C85C-7506-4C34-A376-81CD32407D78@gmail.com> <001d01d63c44$8c62b490$a5281db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 4:58 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Ja. If we didn?t have prisons, we would be in one hell of a jam. > Regarding psychiatric institutions being dismantled, most people do not > know why that was done. But we do: lack of customers. > ### Lack of customers was a part of the story after the introduction of neuroleptics - a huge number of violently agitated patients could then be safely managed on medications, especially after the introduction of depot formulations, so the need for inpatient psychiatry beds was reduced. However, there was more to it - The movement towards community management of psychiatric patients became both ideological and economic. Like the Baptists and bootleggers during prohibition, ideologues claimed that long-term institutional care deprives patients of dignity, freedom and basic rights, while penny-pinchers in the state governments saw a chance to slash a big chunk of spending nobody really cared about. So long-term patients ended up being released en masse, often without due consideration of their chances of resuming independent life outside of the hospital. The result was an explosion in the number of the homeless, petty crime, drug abuse. Lots of people afflicted by diverse psychiatric conditions will self-medicate with alcohol, heroin and worse to help them escape their inner demons. This should not have happened - there are a lot of people who are just not capable of surviving independently but are not decrepit enough to go to a nursing home. Halfway homes, group homes and similar institutions help many but long-term inpatient psychiatric care is still needed for others, and it seems to be under-provided. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 02:02:15 2020 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 22:02:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] resusitation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 7, 2020 at 3:35 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Can't there be a form whereby we can legally defer our decision to a > family member or friend, or just anyone we put on the list? bill w > ### This is called medical power of attorney - but having a POA is not sufficient for the issue at hand. The decision to resuscitate or not must be made immediately after the condition requiring resuscitation (cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest) is discovered. Even 30 seconds makes a measurable difference. There is no time to call around and ask your sleep-addled spouse to make life-and-death decisions on the spur of the moment. A DNR order or other form of ACP (advance care planning) must be available on chart to allow immediate decisions - and in the common EMR (electronic medical record) systems it is very prominently displayed, so the treatment team can get the information in seconds. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 02:43:24 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 21:43:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> Message-ID: <27A39F65-D148-4365-AF3F-617EB4A1268C@gmail.com> I don?t see an appreciable difference in relation to fanaticism. If someone is violently anti-gay because they are gay, or because they feel they have been emasculated, what is the functional difference? It?s still fanaticism. SR Ballard > On Jul 5, 2020, at 7:35 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > SR, what you are describing is called compensation. What I described is called overcompensation, in which the conscious and unconscious things are the same: the 100 lb weakling becomes a strong man. bill w > >> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 6:10 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> Oh, I understand the fanaticism. I was a bit of a fanatic at one point. >> >> It is as was described. You have a deep-seated fear you are covering up. >> >> But the fear doesn?t have to match the action. Like if you?re strongly religious it doesn?t have to be from religious doubt, it could be a doubt about your physical health. You could be strongly anti-gay because you have an eating disorder. And so on. >> >> A classic is anti-gay because of sexual abuse of a boy by a man. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> >>> I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these people. They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy efforts. In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't some of the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? Because they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite sure that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w >>> >>> >>>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a word of it. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> spike >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>>> Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM >>>> To: ExI chat list >>>> Cc: William Flynn Wallace >>>> Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so here?s a few thoughts: >>>> >>>> >>>> The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. >>>> >>>> >>>> If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. >>>> >>>> >>>> A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined that they did. >>>> >>>> >>>> A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is often called reaction formation). >>>> >>>> >>>> So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. >>>> >>>> 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 >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robot at ultimax.com Mon Jul 6 04:15:14 2020 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2020 00:15:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 202, Issue 16 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2cc47de7cff81470b8a5458f5d8ba78b@ultimax.com> Yep, an individual stick is a "pale", ~2000 km of them was "The Pale of Settlement". Everything else you said, too, except for the funny/grim part: the sense of "Pale" as Tsarist Russians used it was directed *inward*. That is to say, the Pale was a north-south line in Russia *inside of which* (i.e., east) Jews were not allowed to settle, but for certain exceptions. So the locus of "beyond the Pale" was closer to the Russian speaker of this phrase than the Pale itself. Ironic, that. I did not know about the Irish and French Pales! But the cognate "pal" is Romance not Slavic, so I should have figured that out for myself. Thanks! Quite a few Russkiis back in Catherine's day spoke French. Until Pushkin came along, some Russian aristocrats never bothered to learn Russian, the language of the serfs. Perhaps the French usage is where they got the word. Anyone have a copy of the OED handy? K3 On Sun, 5 Jul 2020 10:27:19 -0500, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > A pale is a wooden or iron stake put up around some place to protect > it. > The fence is called a palisade. So 'beyond the pale' means outside of > us - . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > foreign, unwanted, dangerous etc. > > bill w From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 15:33:31 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 10:33:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: <27A39F65-D148-4365-AF3F-617EB4A1268C@gmail.com> References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> <27A39F65-D148-4365-AF3F-617EB4A1268C@gmail.com> Message-ID: Now you are telling a psychologist that the basic cause of the behaviors doesn't matter, only the effects. Right? How are we going to understand people with an attitude like that? bill w On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 9:45 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I don?t see an appreciable difference in relation to fanaticism. If > someone is violently anti-gay because they are gay, or because they feel > they have been emasculated, what is the functional difference? It?s still > fanaticism. > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 5, 2020, at 7:35 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > SR, what you are describing is called compensation. What I described is > called overcompensation, in which the conscious and unconscious things are > the same: the 100 lb weakling becomes a strong man. bill w > > On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 6:10 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Oh, I understand the fanaticism. I was a bit of a fanatic at one point. >> >> It is as was described. You have a deep-seated fear you are covering up. >> >> But the fear doesn?t have to match the action. Like if you?re strongly >> religious it doesn?t have to be from religious doubt, it could be a doubt >> about your physical health. You could be strongly anti-gay because you have >> an eating disorder. And so on. >> >> A classic is anti-gay because of sexual abuse of a boy by a man. >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jul 5, 2020, at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing >> someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for >> the wrong side. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these people. >> They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy efforts. >> In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't some of >> the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? Because >> they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite sure >> that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w >> >> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a >>> word of it. >>> >>> >>> >>> I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people >>> struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false >>> flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. >>> >>> >>> >>> My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): >>> >>> >>> >>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing >>> someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for >>> the wrong side. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* extropy-chat *On >>> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>> *Sent:* Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM >>> *To:* ExI chat list >>> *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace >>> *Subject:* [ExI] fanaticism, more >>> >>> >>> >>> Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find >>> those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so >>> here?s a few thoughts: >>> >>> >>> >>> The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book >>> about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is >>> subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will >>> also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain >>> way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. >>> >>> >>> >>> If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather >>> than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair >>> those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others >>> believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like >>> Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. >>> >>> >>> >>> A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to >>> have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined >>> that they did. >>> >>> >>> >>> A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are >>> a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a >>> powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be >>> powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is >>> often called reaction formation). >>> >>> >>> >>> So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then >>> the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully >>> opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people >>> ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. >>> >>> >>> >>> 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 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 16:37:22 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 11:37:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] electoral college Message-ID: SCOTUS just ruled that states can bind the votes of their electoral college members, but I assume that the states now have to take action. Good news so far! bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 17:25:12 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 12:25:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> <27A39F65-D148-4365-AF3F-617EB4A1268C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0F458E05-F71E-49F0-9992-0D32C05C90A4@gmail.com> I don?t think you understand what I meant at all. I?m not telling you there isn?t a difference, I?m saying I don?t see one, and I?m asking you, what makes it different? Okay, knowing that a large sub-group of anti-gay protestors are themselves repressed homosexuals, (and I agree with this, anecdotally), how does that change our approach to them? When we see westboro baptist, do we cry and quietly pull them aside and say ?I?m so sorry you?re gay?? That doesn?t really seem like a winning strategy. Knowing that they are overcompensating, what does that change? How is it not -functionally- the same? What does that knowledge now give us the power to do that we couldn?t do before? SR Ballard > On Jul 6, 2020, at 10:33 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Now you are telling a psychologist that the basic cause of the behaviors doesn't matter, only the effects. Right? How are we going to understand people with an attitude like that? bill w > >> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 9:45 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> I don?t see an appreciable difference in relation to fanaticism. If someone is violently anti-gay because they are gay, or because they feel they have been emasculated, what is the functional difference? It?s still fanaticism. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 7:35 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> SR, what you are describing is called compensation. What I described is called overcompensation, in which the conscious and unconscious things are the same: the 100 lb weakling becomes a strong man. bill w >>> >>>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 6:10 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> Oh, I understand the fanaticism. I was a bit of a fanatic at one point. >>>> >>>> It is as was described. You have a deep-seated fear you are covering up. >>>> >>>> But the fear doesn?t have to match the action. Like if you?re strongly religious it doesn?t have to be from religious doubt, it could be a doubt about your physical health. You could be strongly anti-gay because you have an eating disorder. And so on. >>>> >>>> A classic is anti-gay because of sexual abuse of a boy by a man. >>>> >>>> SR Ballard >>>> >>>>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> spike >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these people. They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy efforts. In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't some of the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? Because they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite sure that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a word of it. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> spike >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>>>>> Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM >>>>>> To: ExI chat list >>>>>> Cc: William Flynn Wallace >>>>>> Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so here?s a few thoughts: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined that they did. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is often called reaction formation). >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. >>>>>> >>>>>> 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 >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 18:50:00 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 13:50:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: <0F458E05-F71E-49F0-9992-0D32C05C90A4@gmail.com> References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> <27A39F65-D148-4365-AF3F-617EB4A1268C@gmail.com> <0F458E05-F71E-49F0-9992-0D32C05C90A4@gmail.com> Message-ID: How is it not -functionally- the same? What does that knowledge now give us the power to do that we couldn?t do before? SR Ballard Functionally it may very well be the same in the ways we act towards fanatical behaviors in the 'real world'. What is different is trying to understand where it is coming from for, for one example, therapy for them. Outside of therapy I would never try to bring unconscious things to consciousness in another person - none of my business. But if the underlying causes are different, it may let you predict towards whom or what the fanatical behavior is aimed. If the unconscious mind is hung up on religious issues you may see the fanatic burn churches, or attack or even kill 'sinners'. If on homosexual issues you may see the fanatical behaviors aimed toward homosexuals ("Let's roll some queers this weekend." - something I have actually heard said). One of our goals is to predict behavior, and if we know nothing of the underlying causes, we cannot do that, since the overt actions, though aimed in different directions, may be the same. In fact, a fanatic may have both of these causes in his unconsciousness because of what he read in Leviticus. bill w On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 12:27 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I don?t think you understand what I meant at all. > > I?m not telling you there isn?t a difference, I?m saying I don?t see one, > and I?m asking you, what makes it different? > > Okay, knowing that a large sub-group of anti-gay protestors are themselves > repressed homosexuals, (and I agree with this, anecdotally), how does that > change our approach to them? When we see westboro baptist, do we cry and > quietly pull them aside and say ?I?m so sorry you?re gay?? That doesn?t > really seem like a winning strategy. > > Knowing that they are overcompensating, what does that change? How is it > not -functionally- the same? What does that knowledge now give us the power > to do that we couldn?t do before? > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 6, 2020, at 10:33 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Now you are telling a psychologist that the basic cause of the behaviors > doesn't matter, only the effects. Right? How are we going to understand > people with an attitude like that? bill w > > On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 9:45 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I don?t see an appreciable difference in relation to fanaticism. If >> someone is violently anti-gay because they are gay, or because they feel >> they have been emasculated, what is the functional difference? It?s still >> fanaticism. >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jul 5, 2020, at 7:35 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> SR, what you are describing is called compensation. What I described is >> called overcompensation, in which the conscious and unconscious things are >> the same: the 100 lb weakling becomes a strong man. bill w >> >> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 6:10 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Oh, I understand the fanaticism. I was a bit of a fanatic at one point. >>> >>> It is as was described. You have a deep-seated fear you are covering up. >>> >>> But the fear doesn?t have to match the action. Like if you?re strongly >>> religious it doesn?t have to be from religious doubt, it could be a doubt >>> about your physical health. You could be strongly anti-gay because you have >>> an eating disorder. And so on. >>> >>> A classic is anti-gay because of sexual abuse of a boy by a man. >>> >>> SR Ballard >>> >>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing >>> someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for >>> the wrong side. >>> >>> >>> >>> spike >>> >>> >>> I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these people. >>> They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy efforts. >>> In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't some of >>> the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? Because >>> they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite sure >>> that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w >>> >>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a >>>> word of it. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people >>>> struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false >>>> flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing >>>> someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for >>>> the wrong side. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> spike >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> *From:* extropy-chat *On >>>> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>>> *Sent:* Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM >>>> *To:* ExI chat list >>>> *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace >>>> *Subject:* [ExI] fanaticism, more >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find >>>> those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so >>>> here?s a few thoughts: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book >>>> about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is >>>> subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will >>>> also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain >>>> way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather >>>> than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair >>>> those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others >>>> believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like >>>> Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found >>>> to have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people >>>> imagined that they did. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you >>>> are a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a >>>> powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be >>>> powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is >>>> often called reaction formation). >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then >>>> the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully >>>> opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people >>>> ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> 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 >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 19:25:10 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 14:25:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> <27A39F65-D148-4365-AF3F-617EB4A1268C@gmail.com> <0F458E05-F71E-49F0-9992-0D32C05C90A4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <67B7C8D6-C672-4072-B441-664304B5011E@gmail.com> That makes sense. SR > On Jul 6, 2020, at 1:50 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > How is it not -functionally- the same? What does that knowledge now give us the power to do that we couldn?t do before? > > SR Ballard > > Functionally it may very well be the same in the ways we act towards fanatical behaviors in the 'real world'. What is different is trying to understand where it is coming from for, for one example, therapy for them. Outside of therapy I would never try to bring unconscious things to consciousness in another person - none of my business. But if the underlying causes are different, it may let you predict towards whom or what the fanatical behavior is aimed. If the unconscious mind is hung up on religious issues you may see the fanatic burn churches, or attack or even kill 'sinners'. If on homosexual issues you may see the fanatical behaviors aimed toward homosexuals ("Let's roll some queers this weekend." - something I have actually heard said). One of our goals is to predict behavior, and if we know nothing of the underlying causes, we cannot do that, since the overt actions, though aimed in different directions, may be the same. In fact, a fanatic may have both of these causes in his unconsciousness because of what he read in Leviticus. bill w > >> On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 12:27 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> I don?t think you understand what I meant at all. >> >> I?m not telling you there isn?t a difference, I?m saying I don?t see one, and I?m asking you, what makes it different? >> >> Okay, knowing that a large sub-group of anti-gay protestors are themselves repressed homosexuals, (and I agree with this, anecdotally), how does that change our approach to them? When we see westboro baptist, do we cry and quietly pull them aside and say ?I?m so sorry you?re gay?? That doesn?t really seem like a winning strategy. >> >> Knowing that they are overcompensating, what does that change? How is it not -functionally- the same? What does that knowledge now give us the power to do that we couldn?t do before? >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 6, 2020, at 10:33 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> Now you are telling a psychologist that the basic cause of the behaviors doesn't matter, only the effects. Right? How are we going to understand people with an attitude like that? bill w >>> >>>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 9:45 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> I don?t see an appreciable difference in relation to fanaticism. If someone is violently anti-gay because they are gay, or because they feel they have been emasculated, what is the functional difference? It?s still fanaticism. >>>> >>>> SR Ballard >>>> >>>>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 7:35 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> >>>>> SR, what you are describing is called compensation. What I described is called overcompensation, in which the conscious and unconscious things are the same: the 100 lb weakling becomes a strong man. bill w >>>>> >>>>>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 6:10 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> Oh, I understand the fanaticism. I was a bit of a fanatic at one point. >>>>>> >>>>>> It is as was described. You have a deep-seated fear you are covering up. >>>>>> >>>>>> But the fear doesn?t have to match the action. Like if you?re strongly religious it doesn?t have to be from religious doubt, it could be a doubt about your physical health. You could be strongly anti-gay because you have an eating disorder. And so on. >>>>>> >>>>>> A classic is anti-gay because of sexual abuse of a boy by a man. >>>>>> >>>>>> SR Ballard >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> spike >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these people. They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy efforts. In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't some of the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? Because they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite sure that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>>>> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a word of it. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for the wrong side. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> spike >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>>>>>>> Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM >>>>>>>> To: ExI chat list >>>>>>>> Cc: William Flynn Wallace >>>>>>>> Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so here?s a few thoughts: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found to have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people imagined that they did. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you are a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is often called reaction formation). >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> 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 >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 19:58:27 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 14:58:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: <67B7C8D6-C672-4072-B441-664304B5011E@gmail.com> References: <00c801d652e2$da3c9be0$8eb5d3a0$@rainier66.com> <8EDC7EBE-C99C-460A-A488-DC6C4C5E51A5@gmail.com> <27A39F65-D148-4365-AF3F-617EB4A1268C@gmail.com> <0F458E05-F71E-49F0-9992-0D32C05C90A4@gmail.com> <67B7C8D6-C672-4072-B441-664304B5011E@gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks. At my age it is good to get some feedback. bill w On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 2:27 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > That makes sense. > > SR > > On Jul 6, 2020, at 1:50 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > How is it not -functionally- the same? What does that knowledge now give > us the power to do that we couldn?t do before? > > SR Ballard > > Functionally it may very well be the same in the ways we act towards > fanatical behaviors in the 'real world'. What is different is trying to > understand where it is coming from for, for one example, therapy for them. > Outside of therapy I would never try to bring unconscious things to > consciousness in another person - none of my business. But if the > underlying causes are different, it may let you predict towards whom or > what the fanatical behavior is aimed. If the unconscious mind is hung up > on religious issues you may see the fanatic burn churches, or attack or > even kill 'sinners'. If on homosexual issues you may see the fanatical > behaviors aimed toward homosexuals ("Let's roll some queers this weekend." > - something I have actually heard said). One of our goals is to predict > behavior, and if we know nothing of the underlying causes, we cannot do > that, since the overt actions, though aimed in different directions, may be > the same. In fact, a fanatic may have both of these causes in his > unconsciousness because of what he read in Leviticus. bill w > > On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 12:27 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I don?t think you understand what I meant at all. >> >> I?m not telling you there isn?t a difference, I?m saying I don?t see one, >> and I?m asking you, what makes it different? >> >> Okay, knowing that a large sub-group of anti-gay protestors are >> themselves repressed homosexuals, (and I agree with this, anecdotally), how >> does that change our approach to them? When we see westboro baptist, do we >> cry and quietly pull them aside and say ?I?m so sorry you?re gay?? That >> doesn?t really seem like a winning strategy. >> >> Knowing that they are overcompensating, what does that change? How is it >> not -functionally- the same? What does that knowledge now give us the power >> to do that we couldn?t do before? >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jul 6, 2020, at 10:33 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> Now you are telling a psychologist that the basic cause of the behaviors >> doesn't matter, only the effects. Right? How are we going to understand >> people with an attitude like that? bill w >> >> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 9:45 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I don?t see an appreciable difference in relation to fanaticism. If >>> someone is violently anti-gay because they are gay, or because they feel >>> they have been emasculated, what is the functional difference? It?s still >>> fanaticism. >>> >>> SR Ballard >>> >>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 7:35 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> SR, what you are describing is called compensation. What I described is >>> called overcompensation, in which the conscious and unconscious things are >>> the same: the 100 lb weakling becomes a strong man. bill w >>> >>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 6:10 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Oh, I understand the fanaticism. I was a bit of a fanatic at one point. >>>> >>>> It is as was described. You have a deep-seated fear you are covering >>>> up. >>>> >>>> But the fear doesn?t have to match the action. Like if you?re strongly >>>> religious it doesn?t have to be from religious doubt, it could be a doubt >>>> about your physical health. You could be strongly anti-gay because you have >>>> an eating disorder. And so on. >>>> >>>> A classic is anti-gay because of sexual abuse of a boy by a man. >>>> >>>> SR Ballard >>>> >>>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 11:56 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing >>>> someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for >>>> the wrong side. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> spike >>>> >>>> >>>> I don't think that any of us can understand the fervor of these >>>> people. They have to go all out or they will punish themselves for wimpy >>>> efforts. In other words, they are driven to extreme positions. Why didn't >>>> some of the people who were burned at the stake recant and live longer? >>>> Because they could not live with themselves if they did that. I feel quite >>>> sure that that was the case with Giordano Bruno. bill w >>>> >>>> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Excellent post BillW. I will leave it all in there without trimming a >>>>> word of it. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I have long suspected extremists in anything are a mixture of people >>>>> struggling to talk themselves out of their own self-doubt, plus false >>>>> flaggers, plus people who just like taking some extreme position. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> My view on it is this (free spike-ism (you?re welcome.)): >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Eschew taking extremist views. There is too much risk of realizing >>>>> someday that you have invested most of your life fighting passionately for >>>>> the wrong side. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> spike >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> *From:* extropy-chat *On >>>>> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>>>> *Sent:* Sunday, July 5, 2020 8:25 AM >>>>> *To:* ExI chat list >>>>> *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace >>>>> *Subject:* [ExI] fanaticism, more >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Fanaticism is said to have many sociological roots, and you can find >>>>> those all over the web. But I didn?t find much on psychological causes, so >>>>> here?s a few thoughts: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The obsessive is capable of making very fine distinctions. One book >>>>> about it features a man who discovers he is 1/32 Negroid and he is >>>>> subsequently ostracized. (Kingblood Royal -Sinclair Lewis). This will >>>>> also make the person a bit of a purist - things just have to be a certain >>>>> way and even slight deviations from it are not permitted. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> If you pair this with paranoia, then deviations can be imagined rather >>>>> than real. Anything slightly indicative becomes a certainty. If you pair >>>>> those with religious content, you get a person who will try to make others >>>>> believe and act the same as him, even if they have to be forced, like >>>>> Islamists and Christians did a few centuries ago. Or just killed. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> A recent study of people who were extremely antihomosexual were found >>>>> to have unconscious tendencies to it themselves, just as many people >>>>> imagined that they did. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> A further factor is overcompensation and reaction formation: if you >>>>> are a latent homosexual but do not realize it you are very likely to be a >>>>> powerful, even violent antihomosexual. The inner feelings have to be >>>>> powerfully defended against by conscious feelings of the opposite (which is >>>>> often called reaction formation). >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> So many fanatics are not what they think they are. If religious, then >>>>> the strong doubts about the validity of the religion have to be powerfully >>>>> opposed by the conscious opposites. Does this mean that some of the people >>>>> ranting about racism are unconscious racists? Of course it does. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 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 >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 20:32:33 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 13:32:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more Message-ID: To take this discussion up a level, the psychological traits behind fanaticism, religions, and wars all evolved in the stone age. I suspect without being able to articulate a proof, that they are all part of the same set of traits that were selected by the vast number of wars over the last 100k years or so. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 21:03:43 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 16:03:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Keith Henson wrote: > To take this discussion up a level, the psychological traits behind > fanaticism, religions, and wars all evolved in the stone age. > > I suspect without being able to articulate a proof, that they are all > part of the same set of traits that were selected by the vast number > of wars over the last 100k years or so. > > Keith > Interesting. And what were those traits? bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 21:59:52 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum Computers Message-ID: If non-abelian anyons exist then you could make a topological quantum computer which would need a lot less quantum error correction, and according to a very recent article such quasiparticles almost certainly do exist. Microsoft is the leading company in this field. Direct observation of anyonic braiding statistics at the ?=1/3 fractional quantum Hall state John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 22:49:47 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 18:49:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: BTW, this post reminded me to ask if anyone on list has watched the show "Devs" yet? If not, I'd highly recommend it as it's very extropian friendly and centers around a quantum computing initiative. I don't want to give away any spoilers (and would recommend not reading anything on it prior to watching). It's by Alex Garland of Ex Machina fame. On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 6:01 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > If non-abelian anyons exist then you could make a topological quantum > computer which would need a lot less quantum error correction, and > according to a very recent article such quasiparticles almost certainly do > exist. Microsoft is the leading company in this field. > > Direct observation of anyonic braiding statistics at the ?=1/3 fractional > quantum Hall state > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 7 15:02:18 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 08:02:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] steve is gone for now Message-ID: <004601d6546f$9c69f0e0$d53dd2a0$@rainier66.com> Friends of Steve Van Sickle, we are having an online memorial Sunday at 2pm. Christine Peterson is handling the details of the Zoom: christinelpeterson1 at gmail.com spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 15:18:32 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 10:18:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] steve is gone for now In-Reply-To: <004601d6546f$9c69f0e0$d53dd2a0$@rainier66.com> References: <004601d6546f$9c69f0e0$d53dd2a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Don't know him. Please tell me a bit about him. bill w On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 10:04 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > Friends of Steve Van Sickle, we are having an online memorial Sunday at > 2pm. Christine Peterson is handling the details of the Zoom: > > > > christinelpeterson1 at gmail.com > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 7 15:53:20 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 08:53:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] steve is gone for now In-Reply-To: References: <004601d6546f$9c69f0e0$d53dd2a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005f01d65476$bd31cd00$37956700$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] steve is gone for now Don't know him. Please tell me a bit about him. bill w He was an occasional poster here for a long time. A local, worked with a startup doing research on tissue preservation headed by Tanya Jones who was Max?s predecessor as Alcor director. Steve and I used to go to lunch once in a while, then go back and talk about feedback control mechanisms that could be used in his research. He was a hell of a good guy, kindhearted, smart as a whip. He will be missed. BillW I regret you never had a chance to meet him. spike On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 10:04 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Friends of Steve Van Sickle, we are having an online memorial Sunday at 2pm. Christine Peterson is handling the details of the Zoom: christinelpeterson1 at gmail.com spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 7 16:30:37 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 09:30:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] steve's research Message-ID: <009101d6547b$f2ba3b10$d82eb130$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com >?He was an occasional poster here for a long time? BillW I regret you never had a chance to meet him. spike Correction to previous, Steve van Sickle was an occasional ExI poster a long time ago. I don?t recall his posting here for perhaps 15 yrs now, but he was on the local cryonics forum. Steve?s research was in gas infusion into tissues as a means of preserving kidneys and other transplantable organs. Transplant therapy would be so much more practical if we had a means of preserving entire organs by some means, so that they had a shelf life of a few weeks rather than a few hours. Everyone understood of course the long term goal is preserving brain tissue, ideally entire brains. Imagine a brain on the shelf for a few weeks, young victim takes one thru la cabeza, out with the destroyed tissue, in I go, patch the two holes where the bullet went in and went out, stem cell miracle to reconnect the spinal cord, a year or two of physical therapy for my brain to find and figure out how to control her muscles, a young healthy athletic body we have. Or a smart old already-educated STEM-enabled brain with a terrific attitude she has, a body happy to be still walking, a brain happy to be still thinking. I guess it would all depend on how you look at it. We would make a great team, simultaneously smart and attrac? eh? OK do let me rethink that last part a bit. A female body would have its advantages (women live longer) but also its challenges: it might attract all the wrong people. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 17:00:39 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 12:00:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] steve's research In-Reply-To: <009101d6547b$f2ba3b10$d82eb130$@rainier66.com> References: <009101d6547b$f2ba3b10$d82eb130$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: What's the coldest human tissues can stand and still be viable when thawed (or in Roz's terminology 'unthawed')? I know that sperm and ova can be frozen for quite some time and still work. Why can't larger tissues do the same? Have you read Heinlein's Fear No Evil? Male brain in a female body. bill w On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 11:32 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > > > > > > >?He was an occasional poster here for a long time? BillW I regret you > never had a chance to meet him. > > > > spike > > > > > > Correction to previous, Steve van Sickle was an occasional ExI poster a > long time ago. I don?t recall his posting here for perhaps 15 yrs now, but > he was on the local cryonics forum. > > > > Steve?s research was in gas infusion into tissues as a means of preserving > kidneys and other transplantable organs. Transplant therapy would be so > much more practical if we had a means of preserving entire organs by some > means, so that they had a shelf life of a few weeks rather than a few hours. > > > > Everyone understood of course the long term goal is preserving brain > tissue, ideally entire brains. Imagine a brain on the shelf for a few > weeks, young victim takes one thru la cabeza, out with the destroyed > tissue, in I go, patch the two holes where the bullet went in and went out, > stem cell miracle to reconnect the spinal cord, a year or two of physical > therapy for my brain to find and figure out how to control her muscles, a > young healthy athletic body we have. > > > > Or a smart old already-educated STEM-enabled brain with a terrific > attitude she has, a body happy to be still walking, a brain happy to be > still thinking. I guess it would all depend on how you look at it. > > > > We would make a great team, simultaneously smart and attrac? eh? OK do > let me rethink that last part a bit. A female body would have its > advantages (women live longer) but also its challenges: it might attract > all the wrong people. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 17:59:45 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 12:59:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle Message-ID: 'They say that a wise man can catch the wind in a net.' For what is that a metaphor? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 7 18:18:41 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 11:18:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle 'They say that a wise man can catch the wind in a net.' For what is that a metaphor? bill w It is an over-specification BillW. Any person, male or female, wise or other-wise (heh) for that matter any lifeform capable of wielding the device can catch the wind in a net. Take one outside on a windy day, see it billow like a sail as it catches the wind. The wind gets thru easily enough of course, but the word ?catch? is over-constrained in this case. Simplified and generalized form: nets catch the wind. Often wise old sayings are only old. The deep meaning of a Zen koan or a Beatles song is supplied by the hearer. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 19:04:11 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 12:04:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fanaticism, more Message-ID: William Flynn Wallace > > Keith Henson wrote: >> To take this discussion up a level, the psychological traits behind >> fanaticism, religions, and wars all evolved in the stone age. > >> I suspect without being able to articulate a proof, that they are all >> part of the same set of traits that were selected by the vast number >> of wars over the last 100k years or so. > Interesting. And what were those traits? Discussed in excruciating detail here: https://www.academia.edu/777381/Evolutionary_psychology_memes_and_the_origin_of_war It and some other papers of mine are referenced here: https://www.academia.edu/43534914/Memetic_Warfare_The_Future_of_War And I discussed the topic in hundreds of posts on this list. The process starts along a path to wars by a group of people anticipating a bleak future. Tripping this detector turns up the gain for circulating xenophobic memes. If the perception of a bleak future goes away, the xenophobic memes will subside. While this is based on individual evolved psychological traits, it is a social (group) phenomenon. I.e. you don't get a war or the lead up to wars with one person. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 19:08:13 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 14:08:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The meaning of anything is supplied by the hearer (Existentialism). I did not know that you were interested in the enigmatic ("What is the sound of one hand clapping...?" "Cl cl cl"). And I have not heard that Beatles' songs needed interpretation. I may have told you that I am not a song word man, as I cannot understand most of the words; so I just enjoy the music part if I can, and I can on a few of their songs. Yesterday, Michelle, a few more (that I have not heard in several decades). I see that you are quite a literal person. The question was about metaphor, and so the answer is: Catching the wind in a net is a metaphor for understanding the felt but not seen. bill w (did like 'otherwise') On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 1:20 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle > > > > 'They say that a wise man can catch the wind in a net.' > > > > For what is that a metaphor? > > > > bill w > > > > > > > > It is an over-specification BillW. Any person, male or female, wise or > other-wise (heh) for that matter any lifeform capable of wielding the > device can catch the wind in a net. Take one outside on a windy day, see > it billow like a sail as it catches the wind. The wind gets thru easily > enough of course, but the word ?catch? is over-constrained in this case. > > > > Simplified and generalized form: nets catch the wind. > > > > Often wise old sayings are only old. > > > > The deep meaning of a Zen koan or a Beatles song is supplied by the hearer. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 19:29:36 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 12:29:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 11:20 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle > > > > 'They say that a wise man can catch the wind in a net.' > > > > For what is that a metaphor? > > > > bill w > > > > It is an over-specification BillW. Any person, male or female, wise or > other-wise (heh) for that matter any lifeform capable of wielding the > device can catch the wind in a net. Take one outside on a windy day, see > it billow like a sail as it catches the wind. The wind gets thru easily > enough of course, but the word ?catch? is over-constrained in this case. > "Man" is often gender-neutral in old sayings. These days, with more sensitivity to gender meanings (not to mention a greater understanding that female people can have just as much agency as male people), we might say "person", but in those olden times when they said "man", women were included in what they meant. The wise part comes from two understandings: 1) Even if most of the wind slips through a net, part of it is still caught. The unwise might think all of the wind slips through. 2) A "net" with thicker strands - a bag, or close enough - can catch the wind with little to none of it slipping through. The unwise are less likely to think of this. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 7 20:43:22 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 13:43:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007c01d6549f$41d21ab0$c5765010$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2020 12:08 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle >?The meaning of anything is supplied by the hearer (Existentialism). I did not know that you were interested in the enigmatic ("What is the sound of one hand clapping...?" "Cl cl cl"). And I have not heard that Beatles' songs needed interpretation? It doesn?t. But Beatles songs were persistently interpreted, with meanings assigned to them the Beatles never intended. Consider the easy breezy and very literal Penny Lane, with an understanding of its time. The 60s Rock and Roll scene eschewed materialism, but those were the early days, when the Fab 4 had been struggling musicians, and before they went to India to be guru-ized. They had no heartburn with commercial success. The Rolling Stones were eating their lunch, so the recording company Parlophone urged the boys from Liverpool to churn out songs, get them on vinyl, fight back against the Stones. McCartney and Lennon lived near Penny Lane, so they wrote a song about the sights and sounds from that very literal place. There really was no deep meaning, but it is a nice song, a pleasant ear virus. You might have caught it just from my mentioning the song, and now you can?t get it out of your head. Before you read on, do stop thinking about Penny Lane please, and concentrate. Later the Beatles? song (HEY! Stop thinking about Penny Lane!) Helter Skelter was interpreted by a psychopath to lead other psychopaths to mass murder. >? Yesterday, Michelle, a few more (that I have not heard in several decades)? Oy now ya done it. I can?t get the Michelle song outta my head. Oh well, I like that one as much as Penny Lane. >?I see that you are quite a literal person? How can you be sure? I might be a literal person, or an AI, at which time I would be a figurative ?person.? >?bill w (did like 'otherwise') Me too! No charge for that sir, my pleasure. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 20:54:20 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 15:54:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <007c01d6549f$41d21ab0$c5765010$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> <007c01d6549f$41d21ab0$c5765010$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: It's ambiguous, you know. It could mean 'other than wise' or 'wise in other ways'. Never heard Penny Lane, I suppose, but Yesterday comes fairly often. If I have a favorite song of theirs, that's it. That was all Lennon, right? bill w On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 3:45 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Tuesday, July 7, 2020 12:08 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle > > > > >?The meaning of anything is supplied by the hearer (Existentialism). I > did not know that you were interested in the enigmatic ("What is the sound > of one hand clapping...?" "Cl cl cl"). And I have not heard that > Beatles' songs needed interpretation? > > > > It doesn?t. But Beatles songs were persistently interpreted, with > meanings assigned to them the Beatles never intended. > > > > Consider the easy breezy and very literal Penny Lane, with an > understanding of its time. The 60s Rock and Roll scene eschewed > materialism, but those were the early days, when the Fab 4 had been > struggling musicians, and before they went to India to be guru-ized. They > had no heartburn with commercial success. The Rolling Stones were eating > their lunch, so the recording company Parlophone urged the boys from > Liverpool to churn out songs, get them on vinyl, fight back against the > Stones. > > > > McCartney and Lennon lived near Penny Lane, so they wrote a song about the > sights and sounds from that very literal place. There really was no deep > meaning, but it is a nice song, a pleasant ear virus. You might have > caught it just from my mentioning the song, and now you can?t get it out of > your head. > > > > Before you read on, do stop thinking about Penny Lane please, and > concentrate. > > > > Later the Beatles? song (HEY! Stop thinking about Penny Lane!) Helter > Skelter was interpreted by a psychopath to lead other psychopaths to mass > murder. > > > > >? Yesterday, Michelle, a few more (that I have not heard in several > decades)? > > > > Oy now ya done it. I can?t get the Michelle song outta my head. Oh well, > I like that one as much as Penny Lane. > > > > >?I see that you are quite a literal person? > > > > How can you be sure? I might be a literal person, or an AI, at which time > I would be a figurative ?person.? > > > > >?bill w (did like 'otherwise') > > > > Me too! No charge for that sir, my pleasure. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 7 23:09:18 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 16:09:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment Message-ID: <00e801d654b3$a485ce40$ed916ac0$@rainier66.com> I have been thinking overtime on evolutionary psychology and have an idea or question. We can get tangled up in the term "instinct" if we wish, but I propose simplifying it in a way by focusing on a set of behaviors that (as far as I can tell) are not learned behaviors but rather something we just have. It's hard to explain. Picture in your mind the kinds of characteristics that cause what I call the Maurice reaction (Steve Miller Band, song: The Joker, that guitar slide wolf whistle right after the line ".some people call me Maurice." (ja that (when you see a person of your favorite gender with a lot of these characteristics, that happens in your head (even though you don't say it or play it on the guitar.)))) Let's call that set the Maurice characteristics, ja? I need not go into detail on what those characteristics are, for we all know: it is easy enough to see that under stone age conditions, they generally point toward fertility and ability to enhance your biological children's chances at living to produce robust offspring. Those characteristics cause the Maurice reaction. Even if we have no intention of producing biological offspring, the Maurice set stirs us anyway. Does it not? Even if we are evolutionary psychology hipsters and we completely understand that conditions have changed, we no longer need the fertility stuff, we don't need the ability to fight off invading tribe characteristics, we understand the Maurice characteristics are not only unnecessary in today's world but are in many ways detrimental. even if all that. we can't really turn it off. If we fully recognize the Maurice reaction is now an evolutionary dead end, or once had its purpose but now is a detriment. we still cannot switch that off. Or if so, I don't know how. Thoughts please? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 02:44:26 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 19:44:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat >?"Man" is often gender-neutral in old sayings. These days, with more sensitivity to gender meanings (not to mention a greater understanding that female people can have just as much agency as male people), we might say "person", but in those olden times when they said "man", women were included in what they meant? One wonders how far we can take this notion. We wish to be inclusive, certainly a virtue with which none will argue, but we are up against language constraints. Sometimes we choose the pedantic ?he or she? and ?his or her? rather than do violence to the language by using the terms ?they? and ?their? for the gender non-specific singular. However, there are more than two genders, and we wish to be inclusive. We haven?t even gotten to the various orientations that make up the letters of the rainbow, so that notion of finding a new word to mean gender and orientation non-specific singular is compelling. Imagine for the moment the students who grew up in this modern western environment, learning Spanish for the first time, with the gender-specific articles. It must all seem sexist to them. How can the Spanish teacher possibly explain how a gender specific article really isn?t what it clearly is? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 03:25:03 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 23:25:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: <00e801d654b3$a485ce40$ed916ac0$@rainier66.com> References: <00e801d654b3$a485ce40$ed916ac0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 7, 2020, 7:11 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Even if we have no intention of producing biological offspring, the > Maurice set stirs us anyway. Does it not? > ... > > If we fully recognize the Maurice reaction is now an evolutionary dead > end, or once had its purpose but now is a detriment? we still cannot switch > that off. Or if so, I don?t know how. > > Thoughts please? > Why would Maurice reaction be evolutionary dead end? Biological offspring and the fertility requirement could be seen as enabling technology that was not an end, but a means. I suspect the propagation of memes supercedes genes and we are continuing to ratchet up what is necessary to cause the Maurice reaction. Even when it was National Geographic bringing nudity from lands far enough from local social customs... some infrastructure had to exist to make that possible. Once the novelty of naked skin (even if differently pigmented) had attenuated, the access technology continues. So what is next-level to the cis+LGBTQ combinations/permutations of parts-on-parts? Sapiosexuals being revved by Maurice reaction... driven by the power to influence power. Money is only a crude way to measure influence. Being able to decide how humans exist on earth... that's how Pharaohs viewed their power. What zero-sum principles check Pharoah's ability to affect change? The laws of physics. I am not sure how we can reasonably discuss the dynamics of Kardashev II+ thinking (or Maurice reaction). Maybe via EP we can compare primordial humans to now and extrapolate. If this post, this list, and all the supporting data (ownership, domain info static, domain info dynamic, routing servers, etc) were compressed to a bauble and tossed into the ocean like a message in a bottle for a 1e4/1e5/1e6 years... would it have enough sparkle to be picked up from among all the other beach diamonds thrown towards the shore? idk, at the finish this was not how I thought this post would go from the start. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 03:48:44 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 23:48:44 -0400 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 7, 2020, 10:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Imagine for the moment the students who grew up in this modern western > environment, learning Spanish for the first time, with the gender-specific > articles. It must all seem sexist to them. How can the Spanish teacher > possibly explain how a gender specific article really isn?t what it clearly > is? > I heard a NPR article discussing the de-gendering of "latina" and "latino" as English language words to describe Spanish language speakers. The proposed "latinx" seems to solve the problem in writing, but nobody knows how to pronounce that abomination. Saying "la-teen-ecks" seems to honor the Spanish pronunciation up to the harshly neutering "ecks" which should have a "sh" sound as in Xel-ha (my limited experience with Mexican words) Though, it might have another sound in Castillian Spanish or whatever dialect of Spanish is spoken South America. It feels to me like cultural appropriation with the added insult that after stealing the word(s) we've then mangled them in such a way that they've lost an important part of the original meaning. But I guess that's the intent of Newspeak.. in any language. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 05:29:42 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 22:29:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004801d654e8$c8fa96e0$5aefc4a0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle On Tue, Jul 7, 2020, 10:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Imagine for the moment the students who grew up in this modern western environment, learning Spanish for the first time, with the gender-specific articles. It must all seem sexist to them. How can the Spanish teacher possibly explain how a gender specific article really isn?t what it clearly is? >?I heard a NPR article discussing the de-gendering of "latina" and "latino" as English language words to describe Spanish language speakers. The proposed "latinx" seems to solve the problem ? >?It feels to me like cultural appropriation with the added insult that after stealing the word(s) we've then mangled them in such a way that they've lost an important part of the original meaning. >?But I guess that's the intent of Newspeak.. in any language. Hey, now that you mention it, how the heck do we figure that learning another language is not a form of cultural appropriation? We have California universities not just ALLOWING but REQUIRING cultural appropriation, which is a form of racism. Add this the sin of allowing a fulfillment of that requirement a SEXIST language! Clearly these Californians need some education in basic equality. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 05:29:42 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 22:29:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: <00e801d654b3$a485ce40$ed916ac0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004d01d654e8$c9a6b560$5cf42020$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat >?If this post, this list, and all the supporting data (ownership, domain info static, domain info dynamic, routing servers, etc) were compressed to a bauble and tossed into the ocean like a message in a bottle for a 1e4/1e5/1e6 years... would it have enough sparkle to be picked up from among all the other beach diamonds thrown towards the shore? Mike! Take out the exponents, replace with the less accurate but more poetic thousand, million, billion years, and flowing comment has a graceful beauty to the thought and the way it was expressed. >?idk, at the finish this was not how I thought this post would go from the start. Mike, once in a while a sparking jewel of brilliance appears on this list. Thanks for this one. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 05:29:37 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 22:29:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment Message-ID: wrote: > I have been thinking overtime on evolutionary psychology and have an idea or question. > We can get tangled up in the term "instinct" if we wish, but I propose simplifying it in a way by focusing on a set of behaviors that (as far as I can tell) are not learned behaviors but rather something we just have. It's hard to explain. I tend to call them psychological traits. Some of them, like status seeking, are on all the time, especially in males. Even if it will not get you more nookey today, things like posting here are driven by status seeking. I was once lambasted from the bench by a Federal Judge for recognizing that I, like most other guys, was motivated by status seeking. (There is no more obvious example of status seeking than a Federal Judge who usually gives up 2/3 of his income as lawyers to become judges.) Those males in our stone age past who did not seek and gain status seldom got any nookey. That's clear from the studies that were done on the few stone age people who were studied in the middle of the last century. The ones I find more interesting are the psychological traits that are activated by external events. This https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Capture-bonding is perhaps the easiest to understand how it came to be selected. Captured women bonded to those that captured them or they were killed. A million years of that kind of selection leaves deep marks on the genes. ""The percentage of females in the lowland villages who have been abducted is significantly higher: 17% compared to 11.7% in the highland villages." (Napoleon Chagnon quoted at Sexual Polarization in Warrior Cultures)" > Picture in your mind the kinds of characteristics that cause what I call the Maurice reaction (Steve Miller Band, song: The Joker, that guitar slide wolf whistle right after the line ".some people call me Maurice." (ja that (when you see a person of your favorite gender with a lot of these characteristics, that happens in your head (even though you don't say it or play it on the guitar.)))) Let's call that set the Maurice characteristics, ja? > I need not go into detail on what those characteristics are, for we all know: it is easy enough to see that under stone age conditions, they generally point toward fertility and ability to enhance your biological children's chances at living to produce robust offspring. Those characteristics cause the Maurice reaction. > Even if we have no intention of producing biological offspring, the Maurice set stirs us anyway. Does it not? > Even if we are evolutionary psychology hipsters and we completely understand that conditions have changed, we no longer need the fertility stuff, we don't need the ability to fight off invading tribe characteristics, we understand the Maurice characteristics are not only unnecessary in today's world but are in many ways detrimental. even if all that. we can't really turn it off. > If we fully recognize the Maurice reaction is now an evolutionary dead end, or once had its purpose but now is a detriment. we still cannot switch that off. Or if so, I don't know how. > Thoughts please? I think you are utterly wrong. What you are talking about is sexual/attraction.drive. It's not obsolete. The generation that edits it out would be the last generation. The people who don't have it, and I have known quite a few, do not contribute genes to the next generation. Keith From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 05:33:30 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 22:33:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7E348248-0907-409C-9255-89EFB9FF7946@gmail.com> On Jul 7, 2020, at 12:31 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > >>> On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 11:20 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> >> Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle >> >> >> >> 'They say that a wise man can catch the wind in a net.' >> >> >> >> For what is that a metaphor? >> >> >> >> bill w >> >> >> >> It is an over-specification BillW. Any person, male or female, wise or other-wise (heh) for that matter any lifeform capable of wielding the device can catch the wind in a net. Take one outside on a windy day, see it billow like a sail as it catches the wind. The wind gets thru easily enough of course, but the word ?catch? is over-constrained in this case. >> > > "Man" is often gender-neutral in old sayings. ?Man? has a more complex history. In AngloSaxon, the word did cover both males and females, but there were words to refer to adult males (wer) and adult females (wif). Without an article ?man? meant something like human would mean for us. And, yes, later on, in the 18th century, ?man? once again started being used to refer gender neutrally, but notice this is hundreds of years later. So the ?old sayings? view is rather new if you believe such old sayings (if they?re older than the 18th century) use man.? There are also issues with translation. For instance, if an adage is translated from Latin or Ancient Greek, there were gender neutral terms for humans in both those languages, so one has to be careful that the translation either misses a gender neutral usage or treats something gendered as if it were neutral. To be sure, there?s poetic license in some translations and it might depend on when the translation is done. > These days, with more sensitivity to gender meanings (not to mention a greater understanding that female people can have just as much agency as male people), we might say "person", but in those olden times when they said "man", women were included in what they meant. The issue was often that women were treated as a sort of lesser version of human and basically covered. > The wise part comes from two understandings: > 1) Even if most of the wind slips through a net, part of it is still caught. The unwise might think all of the wind slips through. > 2) A "net" with thicker strands - a bag, or close enough - can catch the wind with little to none of it slipping through. The unwise are less likely to think of this. I thought it was a joke and a play on some biblical. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 06:33:29 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 23:33:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 7:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > > >?"Man" is often gender-neutral in old sayings. These days, with more > sensitivity to gender meanings (not to mention a greater understanding that > female people can have just as much agency as male people), we might say > "person", but in those olden times when they said "man", women were > included in what they meant? > > > > One wonders how far we can take this notion. We wish to be inclusive, > certainly a virtue with which none will argue, but we are up against > language constraints. Sometimes we choose the pedantic ?he or she? and > ?his or her? rather than do violence to the language by using the terms > ?they? and ?their? for the gender non-specific singular. However, there > are more than two genders, and we wish to be inclusive. > Indeed, within the past month, I have seen someone opinining that when the law says "him or her", the law does not apply to anyone who responds to some other pronoun instead. This is incorrect. Where words have been redefined in this manner, the law uses the meaning of the word used by the author, and the author clearly meant to mean everyone, It is entirely possible - likely, in many cases - that the author had never heard of non-binary people, or of any third party personal pronoun other than "him" or "her", as of the date of that particular law's authorship. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 12:19:23 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 08:19:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden Message-ID: Some people say Sweden should be a model for the US on how to respond to COVID-19 because they did not shut things down as completely as many other advanced countries did including all its immediate neighbors, but the latest numbers on the Swedish experiment are not encouraging. Per capita Sweden has had 6 times more deaths from the virus than Denmark, 7 times more deaths than Finland, and 12 times more deaths than Norway. And yet despite paying the huge price of all those additional deaths Sweden has received little or no economic benefit from that sacrifice compared to its neighbors. Before the pandemic Sweden's central bank had predicted its economy would grow by 1.3% this year, now it predicts its GDP will shrink by 4.5%; and unemployment jumped from 7.1% in March to 9% in May. By comparison Denmark's central bank predicts that its economy will shrink by 4.1%: and unemployment jumped from 4.1% in March to 5.6% in May. It Seems that all those Swedes died for nothing. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 12:28:13 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 08:28:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: <004d01d654e8$c9a6b560$5cf42020$@rainier66.com> References: <00e801d654b3$a485ce40$ed916ac0$@rainier66.com> <004d01d654e8$c9a6b560$5cf42020$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020, 1:38 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Mike! Take out the exponents, replace with the less accurate but more > poetic thousand, million, billion years, and flowing comment has a graceful > beauty to the thought and the way it was expressed. > I started with million years; it sounded extreme but thousand didn't seem like enough. So though SI notation looks accurate, the idea is a range over two orders of magnitude - and that's clearly in the realm of poetic for math nerds. :) I don't remember where/when I first encountered the idea of the 10,000 year clock, but it's become something I think about every so often. It would be interesting to be able to look back on that project and note the passage of time as fondly recalling old TV series. www.10000yearclock.net > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 13:19:00 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 06:19:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006001d6552a$588077d0$09816770$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2020 10:30 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Keith Henson Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment > If we fully recognize the Maurice reaction is now an evolutionary dead > end, or once had its purpose but now is a detriment. we still cannot switch that off. Or if so, I don't know how. > Thoughts please? I think you are utterly wrong. What you are talking about is sexual/attraction.drive. It's not obsolete. The generation that edits it out would be the last generation. The people who don't have it, and I have known quite a few, do not contribute genes to the next generation. Keith _______________________________________________ Hi Keith, agree we don't want to switch off drive to breed, only the current stone-age evolved Maurice set, which is our drive to seek out characteristics no longer needed under current conditions. The fact that we are turned on by characteristics related to faster reproduction (now useless (it is no longer a race to breed armies)) and ability to physically drive off raiders (now useless (we have machines for that)) rather than primarily by intelligence is now humanity's barrier to a better future. What was once a stepping stone is now a stumbling block. Our stone-age evolved psychological traits are preventing humans from evolving into those bulbous-headed creatures who rebuilt Kirk in the original Star Trek pilot. The problem is that once we are collectively aware of our Maurice reactions and where they came from and that we no longer need those, we cannot turn them off. spike From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 13:36:23 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 06:36:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006101d6552c$c6260230$52720690$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2020 11:33 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 7:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: From: extropy-chat > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat >?"Man" is often gender-neutral in old sayings. These days, with more sensitivity to gender meanings (not to mention a greater understanding that female people can have just as much agency as male people), we might say "person", but in those olden times when they said "man", women were included in what they meant? One wonders how far we can take this notion. We wish to be inclusive, certainly a virtue with which none will argue, but we are up against language constraints. Sometimes we choose the pedantic ?he or she? and ?his or her? rather than do violence to the language by using the terms ?they? and ?their? for the gender non-specific singular. However, there are more than two genders, and we wish to be inclusive. >?Indeed, within the past month, I have seen someone opinining that when the law says "him or her", the law does not apply to anyone who responds to some other pronoun instead. >?This is incorrect. Where words have been redefined in this manner, the law uses the meaning of the word used by the author, and the author clearly meant to mean everyone, It is entirely possible - likely, in many cases - that the author had never heard of non-binary people, or of any third party personal pronoun other than "him" or "her", as of the date of that particular law's authorship. Adrian, this is the kind of thing that has me thinking about how we will be judged in the future. It has come in vogue to judge people from the past by today?s ethical standards rather than the standards of their times. No doubt we will be judged in a similar manner, for that system is easier than actually learning about culture from past times. Today we are furiously tearing down past culture, treating it as morally toxic (or much worse.) In this way, we establish ourselves as the moral superiors of our forefath? forepar? hmmm, forehumans while having the same evolution-implanted psychological characteristics they had for all the same reasons. We are not ethically or morally superior to our forelifeforms. We haven?t figured out how to evolve past the factors that made them and made us this way. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 13:51:35 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 06:51:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Sweden >?Some people say Sweden should be a model for the US on how to respond to COVID-19 ? John K Clark Which states? Sweden is a model for some of them, not for others. If Sweden is compared to New York, one would argue all those NYers died for doing the wrong thing, and were harmed both psychologically and economically for all those deaths. The lesson we learned is that any place anywhere on the globe which creates a system dependent on mass transit in which social isolation is impractical or impossible will be inherently vulnerable to viruses. We fixed nothing. This will happen again and again, until we find a way to socially isolate travelers. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 13:58:00 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 09:58:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 9:53 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> any place anywher.e on the globe which creates a system dependent on > mass transit in which social isolation is impractical or impossible will be > inherently vulnerable to viruses. * South Korea is a counterexample which proves your thesis is wrong. John K Clark > > > > > *On Behalf Of *John Clark via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] Sweden > > > > >?Some people say Sweden should be a model for the US on how to respond to > COVID-19 ? > > > > John K Clark > > > > > > Which states? Sweden is a model for some of them, not for others. If > Sweden is compared to New York, one would argue all those NYers died for > doing the wrong thing, and were harmed both psychologically and > economically for all those deaths. > > > > The lesson we learned is that any place anywhere on the globe which > creates a system dependent on mass transit in which social isolation is > impractical or impossible will be inherently vulnerable to viruses. We > fixed nothing. This will happen again and again, until we find a way to > socially isolate travelers. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 14:44:30 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 07:44:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden Message-ID: John Clark snip > It Seems that all those Swedes died for nothing. John, it's not over. If it takes natural herd immunity to stop this virus, then the other countries will have the same death rate eventually. A vaccine would change the picture, of course. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 14:54:29 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 09:54:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: <006001d6552a$588077d0$09816770$@rainier66.com> References: <006001d6552a$588077d0$09816770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: There's a whole host of things I would change before I would change anything sexual. Some of you regard emotion as a stumbling block to reason, so if we could just contain our emotions, note them but not be driven by them, humans would be better off. I disagree, but clearly there are times when emotions drive us to very irrational behaviors we wish we had not done. We have little emotional control even as adults. Anger can take over completely. So can fear even if it is totally irrational to fear whatever it is. But good emotions are the spice of life. Spike, how about this: we change human sexual drives to be like estrus: if the female is not in estrus the male is not interested. So the female in estrus is the sole sexual stimulant. Unless they make a smell-o-vision, that will eliminate time spent on looking at naked women and all that. Estrus will be kept in check by pills, so that a woman might go years without going into estrus and not missing a thing. Something like this? bill w On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 8:21 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2020 10:30 PM > To: ExI chat list > Cc: Keith Henson > Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment > > > > If we fully recognize the Maurice reaction is now an evolutionary dead > > end, or once had its purpose but now is a detriment. we still cannot > switch that off. Or if so, I don't know how. > > > Thoughts please? > > I think you are utterly wrong. What you are talking about is > sexual/attraction.drive. It's not obsolete. The generation that edits it > out would be the last generation. The people who don't have it, and I have > known quite a few, do not contribute genes to the next generation. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > > Hi Keith, agree we don't want to switch off drive to breed, only the > current > stone-age evolved Maurice set, which is our drive to seek out > characteristics no longer needed under current conditions. The fact that > we > are turned on by characteristics related to faster reproduction (now > useless > (it is no longer a race to breed armies)) and ability to physically drive > off raiders (now useless (we have machines for that)) rather than primarily > by intelligence is now humanity's barrier to a better future. What was > once > a stepping stone is now a stumbling block. > > Our stone-age evolved psychological traits are preventing humans from > evolving into those bulbous-headed creatures who rebuilt Kirk in the > original Star Trek pilot. The problem is that once we are collectively > aware of our Maurice reactions and where they came from and that we no > longer need those, we cannot turn them off. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 14:58:24 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 09:58:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <006101d6552c$c6260230$52720690$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> <006101d6552c$c6260230$52720690$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Fanatics are responsible for all of it: tearing down statues, taking names off of buildings and so on. It is black and white thinking. If Jefferson kept a slave then he is a bad person who has utterly no qualities we want to emulate. I predict that cooler heads will prevail after some token things, like moving statues to cemeteries and the like. For example, Robert E. Lee was a very fine person who let his emotion of loyalty overcome his rational side (a danger for all conservatives, I should add). bill w On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 8:38 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Tuesday, July 7, 2020 11:33 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* Adrian Tymes > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle > > > > On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 7:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > > >?"Man" is often gender-neutral in old sayings. These days, with more > sensitivity to gender meanings (not to mention a greater understanding that > female people can have just as much agency as male people), we might say > "person", but in those olden times when they said "man", women were > included in what they meant? > > > > One wonders how far we can take this notion. We wish to be inclusive, > certainly a virtue with which none will argue, but we are up against > language constraints. Sometimes we choose the pedantic ?he or she? and > ?his or her? rather than do violence to the language by using the terms > ?they? and ?their? for the gender non-specific singular. However, there > are more than two genders, and we wish to be inclusive. > > > > >?Indeed, within the past month, I have seen someone opinining that when > the law says "him or her", the law does not apply to anyone who responds to > some other pronoun instead. > > > > >?This is incorrect. Where words have been redefined in this manner, the > law uses the meaning of the word used by the author, and the author clearly > meant to mean everyone, It is entirely possible - likely, in many cases - > that the author had never heard of non-binary people, or of any third party > personal pronoun other than "him" or "her", as of the date of that > particular law's authorship. > > > > > > Adrian, this is the kind of thing that has me thinking about how we will > be judged in the future. It has come in vogue to judge people from the > past by today?s ethical standards rather than the standards of their > times. No doubt we will be judged in a similar manner, for that system is > easier than actually learning about culture from past times. > > > > Today we are furiously tearing down past culture, treating it as morally > toxic (or much worse.) In this way, we establish ourselves as the moral > superiors of our forefath? forepar? hmmm, forehumans while having the same > evolution-implanted psychological characteristics they had for all the same > reasons. > > > > We are not ethically or morally superior to our forelifeforms. We haven?t > figured out how to evolve past the factors that made them and made us this > way. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 15:23:19 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 08:23:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Sweden On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 9:53 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > any place anywher.e on the globe which creates a system dependent on mass transit in which social isolation is impractical or impossible will be inherently vulnerable to viruses. South Korea is a counterexample which proves your thesis is wrong. John K Clark Asian people may have a higher natural resistance, just as Swedish native populations have a higher natural resistance to a lot of stuff that tears up native American populations. If they do, it makes sense to me. China in general seems to be ground zero for a lot of trans-species viruses, such as covid-19 and the virus which caused the 1918 pandemic. If Asia has been getting those for centuries, it stands to reason that they might have a higher natural immunity. Either way, those subways and planes are always going to provide an ideal vector for viruses. There is no practical way I can see to socially isolate on a plane. Everyone on board breathes everyone else?s air. Subways and buses may be even worse because they pack them tighter. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 16:01:31 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 09:01:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008001d65541$0c6cf230$2546d690$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com >?Either way, those subways and planes are always going to provide an ideal vector for viruses. There is no practical way I can see to socially isolate on a plane. Everyone on board breathes everyone else?s air. Subways and buses may be even worse because they pack them tighter? spike The Texas Medical Association put together this list: https://www.texmed.org/uploadedFiles/Current/2016_Public_Health/Infectious_Diseases/309193%20Risk%20Assessment%20Chart%20V2_FINAL.pdf They listed travelling by plane as a 7, in the same range as several other things I will not do, barber shop, inside dining at a restaurant, wedding, funeral, playing basketball, football, hugging or shaking hands. I see that the TMA ranked going to school as a 6. That one is different in a way: all these other activities are voluntary. Kids are compelled to go to school. So? I will hold the line on that: regardless of what the government says, it is still too risky in my opinion. My recommendation will stay: when in doubt, hold em out. I see what looks like a good compromise: require all public schools to offer all online school as an option for those who choose it. Our local school board is offering all-online school this fall. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 16:07:20 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 12:07:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 11:25 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *>>> ** any place anywher**.**e on the globe which creates a system > dependent on mass transit in which social isolation is impractical or > impossible will be inherently vulnerable to viruses. * > > > > >> South Korea is a counterexample which proves your thesis is wrong. > > > > *> Asian people may have a higher natural resistance, * > Then why did the pandemic grow so rapidly in China in the very earliest days before the government there got its act together? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Wed Jul 8 16:18:48 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 12:18:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <008001d65541$0c6cf230$2546d690$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <008001d65541$0c6cf230$2546d690$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, July 8, 2020 12:01, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > I see that the TMA ranked going to school as a 6. That one is different > in a way: all these other activities are voluntary. Kids are compelled to > go to school. So? I will hold the line on that: regardless of what the > government says, it is still too risky in my opinion. My recommendation > will stay: when in doubt, hold em out. > > > > I see what looks like a good compromise: require all public schools to > offer all online school as an option for those who choose it. Our local > school board is offering all-online school this fall. > Spike - you do realize that not-very-rich parents of young children will be in *big trouble* if there is no regular school? Someone will have to stay home to care for the young. Of course we could set up day-care for school age kids, but ... they may as well be in school. My family is running into this problem now: both parents work, I'm in an "at risk" category, day care is closed & has been for months. The lockdown-working-from-home parent's job is opening up again, so there is nobody to stay with kids who are 10+ years too young to legally be alone at home. So both parents are presently part-timing to cover childcare, but that's not going to work long-term. They stand to lose their jobs, home, and health insurance, not to mention one state pension. This is not a good situation. Anger & fear is building. Regards, MB From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 16:35:47 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 09:35:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <006101d6552c$c6260230$52720690$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d6548b$0ba469c0$22ed3d40$@rainier66.com> <001001d654d1$b25dfb50$1719f1f0$@rainier66.com> <006101d6552c$c6260230$52720690$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 6:38 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Adrian, this is the kind of thing that has me thinking about how we will > be judged in the future. It has come in vogue to judge people from the > past by today?s ethical standards rather than the standards of their > times. No doubt we will be judged in a similar manner, for that system is > easier than actually learning about culture from past times. > I would not worry so much about it. The cases I am aware of, there was objection to even in their own time. Most of the statues and monuments being torn down today were defending or promoting slavery, no matter what their defender-apologists claim. Sure, lots of people owned slaves - but going right back to antiquity, one can find many who opposed the practice, such as the Qin dynasty of ancient China which forbade slavery during its (brief) reign. The biggest exception I am aware of in the recent pull-downs are: * Christopher Columbus, who gets incorrectly blamed for a lot of the problems his discovery led to. That said, it is unclear if he ever realized he never actually made it to the Far East - and it seems he was a slaver too (after appointment as governor), not just an explorer. Making free people into slaves is worse than merely owning them. * Certain abolitionists' statues have been removed, under circumstances that clearly do not reflect the majority opinion of the public, but instead appear to be retaliation for removing monuments to slavery. It is possible that those statues will be put right back up, or replaced with other monuments to the same people. Future moral changes are likely to be based on options that become available as new technology arises - which options are not available to us today. There is no moral outcry against early medieval city planners for using lead pipes, for instance, as they were unaware of lead poisoning (despite some Romans and ancient Greeks knowing of this, that knowledge seems to have been largely removed from the Western medical knowledge base with the fall of Rome, only to be rediscovered later). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 16:45:18 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 09:45:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Sweden On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 11:25 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >> South Korea is a counterexample which proves your thesis is wrong. > Asian people may have a higher natural resistance, Then why did the pandemic grow so rapidly in China in the very earliest days before the government there got its act together? John K Clark Our data from China is unreliable. Theirs is a government which controls data and information flow. Citizens there were threatened for posting to the internet. We still don?t know how many covid cases they had in China. That being said, if more government is the answer to epidemics, this is bad news indeed for the USA and the west in general, for we have less government here than either China or South Korea. As the impact of the quarantine filters up (in the form of lower tax revenue) the west in general and the USA will have still less government than we have now. If government is the answer to epidemics, your best bet for avoiding the virus is to flee to North Korea. I?ll taaaaaake? Covid for 500 please Alex. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 16:47:53 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 09:47:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment Message-ID: wrote: > Hi Keith, agree we don't want to switch off drive to breed, only the current stone-age evolved Maurice set, which is our drive to seek out characteristics no longer needed under current conditions. Again I disagree. Badly distorted people of any sex are not the best candiatas for reproduction. Neither are people covered with sores. I have been in the presence of super models a few times. I know I am far out on the distribution curve, but while they were impressive to look at, that was the limit of my interest. The one exception was in Playboy (not the Playmate) and a brilliant programmer. I suspect that people have been finding intelligence attractive for a long time. > The fact that we are turned on by characteristics related to faster reproduction (now useless (it is no longer a race to breed armies)) and ability to physically drive off raiders (now useless (we have machines for that)) AI fighting robots may be coming, but they are not here yet. > rather than primarily by intelligence is now humanity's barrier to a better future. What was once a stepping stone is now a stumbling block. Up until about 1800, the rich out reproduced the poor, at least in the UK. When reliable birth control came along it was adopted from the top down and the selection for the traits (including intelligence) were no longer happening. By that time, the population of the UK was descended from around 10% of the population in 1250. The smarter, literate, numerant, hard working part of the population with considerable impulse control. Gregory Clark thinks this was a major factor in the industrial revolution. I don't think there is a chance of improving the human race in the direction of being more intelligent by breeding, the process is too uncertain and too slow.. Directly editing the DNA will be available in a generation or so. > Our stone-age evolved psychological traits are preventing humans from evolving into those bulbous-headed creatures who rebuilt Kirk in the original Star Trek pilot. Ah, we *have* evolved into bulbous-headed creatures. Ever looked at the cranial capacity of Australopithecines? William Calvin thinks the big brain evolved to support accurate throwing, something we can do and chimps can't. But I suspect that much of the evolutionary drive was due to people finding smarter people attractive. > The problem is that once we are collectively aware of our Maurice reactions and where they came from and that we no longer need those, we cannot turn them off. Some traits like status seeking we probably don't want to turn off. It is behind every Nobel Prize. Others like capture bonding are not commonly turned on in the full Patty Hearst mode. War mode can be kept from developing by keeping the income per capita stable or slowly rising. This last seems to me to be a lot more important to human welfare than the trait of finding healthy people attractive. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 16:53:53 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 09:53:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <008001d65541$0c6cf230$2546d690$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002901d65548$5cf73740$16e5a5c0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of MB via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2020 9:19 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: MB Subject: Re: [ExI] Sweden On Wed, July 8, 2020 12:01, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >>... I see what looks like a good compromise: require all public schools to > offer all online school as an option for those who choose it. Our > local school board is offering all-online school this fall. spike > >...Spike - you do realize that not-very-rich parents of young children will be in *big trouble* if there is no regular school? Someone will have to stay home to care for the young. >...Of course we could set up day-care for school age kids, but ... they may as well be in school. >...My family is running into this problem now: both parents work, I'm in an "at risk" category, day care is closed & has been for months. The lockdown-working-from-home parent's job is opening up again, so there is nobody to stay with kids who are 10+ years too young to legally be alone at home. So both parents are presently part-timing to cover childcare, but that's not going to work long-term. They stand to lose their jobs, home, and health insurance, not to mention one state pension. >...This is not a good situation. Anger & fear is building. Regards, MB Hi MB, ja I do see that. Our local public schools have openly recognized that their duties have expanded beyond education: they are also tasked with being a daycare and feeding the children (both breakfast and lunch if they request it.) Since the quarantine, those duties have expanded even further, to provider of ChromeBooks and internet. Our local schools have stepped up to the plate in all these, but we now face a new problem: funding at the state level is going to drop as tax revenue drops. So now public schools are in a pinch: their service load is expanding while their resources are dwindling. The important thing to me is that the public schools offer the option of all stay-at-home education for those who are in a position to use that. Otherwise we compel students to go into a danger zone, rather than offer them the choice of doing so. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 17:16:14 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 13:16:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 12:51 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: * > If government is the answer to epidemics, your best bet for avoiding > the virus is to flee to North Korea.* That wouldn't work, but fleeing to any nation in which the head of government isn't an ignorant imbecile would, such as Japan or Singapore or New Zealand or even Uruguay: Uruguay quietly beats coronavirus, distinguishing itself from its South American neighbors ? yet again John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 17:31:00 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 10:31:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004501d6554d$8c52d5d0$a4f88170$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat >...I suspect that people have been finding intelligence attractive for a long time... No doubt about that. It isn't as highly ranked as I would like to see it, but it is attractive. We can thank Bill Gates for part of its increase in popularity. > ... and ability to physically drive off raiders (now useless (we have machines for that)) >...AI fighting robots may be coming, but they are not here yet... Actually I was thinking of firearms. >>... rather than primarily by intelligence is now humanity's barrier to a better future. What was once a stepping stone is now a stumbling block. ... >> Our stone-age evolved psychological traits are preventing humans from evolving into those bulbous-headed creatures who rebuilt Kirk in the original Star Trek pilot. >...Ah, we *have* evolved into bulbous-headed creatures. Ever looked at the cranial capacity of Australopithecines? William Calvin thinks the big brain evolved to support accurate throwing, something we can do and chimps can't... I have long been interested in that notion since I was introduced to it. The hand and shoulder structure is different between chimps and humans. The notion is that protochimps/protohumans diverged because one guy figured out how to hunt by hurling stones at prey. This got me to thinking, realizing that scenario is very plausible. It would lead to upright walking, bigger brains, the greater differentiation between hands and feet from specialization. Hikers find a good example of prey (marmots) which have enough meat on them to be worth attempting to bean with a stone, plus plenty of good stones. A good baseball pitcher can hit a marmot-sized target with a baseball. It stands to reason that a pre-stone age hunter could hit one occasionally. I see that theory as plausible. >...Some traits like status seeking we probably don't want to turn off... Keith That depends on the circumstances. It is easy enough to imagine status seeking as a mixed bag or even a maladaptive trait, depending on the situation. spike From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 17:34:16 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 10:34:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Sweden On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 12:51 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > If government is the answer to epidemics, your best bet for avoiding the virus is to flee to North Korea. >?That wouldn't work, but fleeing to any nation in which the head of government isn't an ignorant imbecile would, such as Japan or Singapore or New Zealand or even Uruguay: Uruguay quietly beats coronavirus, distinguishing itself from its South American neighbors ? yet again John K Clark How about Wyoming? That one is apparently headed by someone who knows how to handle the virus. You don?t even need a passport. The critical point is to get out of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts forthwith. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 17:44:45 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 13:44:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 1:38 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > The critical point is to get out of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and > Massachusetts forthwith. > > > > spike > > > Actually, we've all got it under control now (although in spite of that, in an idiotic move, the governor of NJ just mandated masks OUTSIDE). CT/NY/NJ are probably some of the safest places to be right now. All that said, the death rate is now very low nationwide. We'll see if it holds, but if it does, that's a welcome bit of very good news. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 20:09:03 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 13:09:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1EA5611A-3AFD-43D0-BCAA-56E2F0C6F591@gmail.com> On Jul 8, 2020, at 8:08 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > Fanatics are responsible for all of it: tearing down statues, taking names off of buildings and so on. It is black and white thinking. If Jefferson kept a slave then he is a bad person who has utterly no qualities we want to emulate. I predict that cooler heads will prevail after some token things, like moving statues to cemeteries and the like. For example, Robert E. Lee was a very fine person who let his emotion of loyalty overcome his rational side (a danger for all conservatives, I should add). > bill w Except that Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves and bought slaves too. See: https://www.monticello.org/slavery/slavery-faqs/property/ It seems to me like he might?ve written about the evils of slavery, but he didn?t do much to suffer material discomfort in that regard. And Robert E. Lee likewise owned at least two hundred slaves and was quite cruel in that capacity. See: https://apnews.com/afs:Content:9009420680 Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 20:15:08 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 16:15:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 1:40 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> How about Wyoming? * > How about Hawaii? Once again for some reason you use Republican Wyoming not Democratic Hawaii as your example; but Hawaii has only had 19 deaths from the Coronavirus while Wyoming has had 20, and the population of Hawaii is about two and a half times larger than Wyoming, 1.42 million vs 579 thousand. And even though Hawaii has far FAR more airline travelers from distant countries than Wyoming does only 1071 Hawaiians have gotten sick from the virus, but in Wyoming 1711 have become ill. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 20:29:26 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 13:29:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00b101d65566$799d85c0$6cd89140$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Sweden On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 1:40 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > How about Wyoming? How about Hawaii? Once again for some reason you use Republican Wyoming not Democratic Hawaii ? John K Clark Campaign literature, disregard all. John, I know not nor care not what party runs each state. The reason I wouldn?t go to Hawaii is that it requires a plane to get there: out of the question. Everything isn?t politics. There are plenty of us who can?t tell the difference between the parties you mention. I can?t. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 20:32:30 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 16:32:30 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: >From my understanding, Hawaii also had some of the most draconian lockdown measures in the US. On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 4:17 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 1:40 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > >> *> How about Wyoming? * >> > > How about Hawaii? Once again for some reason you use Republican Wyoming > not Democratic Hawaii as your example; but Hawaii has only had 19 deaths > from the Coronavirus while Wyoming has had 20, and the population of Hawaii > is about two and a half times larger than Wyoming, 1.42 million vs 579 > thousand. And even though Hawaii has far FAR more airline travelers from > distant countries than Wyoming does only 1071 Hawaiians have gotten sick > from the virus, but in Wyoming 1711 have become ill. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 20:54:41 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 13:54:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00dd01d6556a$00fe52d0$02faf870$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Sweden >?From my understanding, Hawaii also had some of the most draconian lockdown measures in the US? Hi Dylan, ja, I don?t doubt that if all schools and businesses are required to close and stay closed, the cases will go down, no question. Then, businesses fail everywhere. Government revenue drops while immediate need goes up. Then government can?t pay the bills. Catastrophe soon follows. California is already seeing the distasteful choices ahead and choosing a middle ground wherever possible. Likely there will be a surge in covid cases as businesses reopen, and government services will need to be reduced severely everywhere. The state will issue emergency bonds, but they look risky to me. Our school board is already making deep and painful cuts. There?s no point in blaming the governor: no matter what he did, there would be suffering. Other than President Xi, I don?t see any clear fault. He was a bastard for trying to cover it up as long as he could, giving it a chance to escape and infect the entire planet. Other than him, I don?t really see any spectacular failures. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 20:55:40 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 15:55:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <1EA5611A-3AFD-43D0-BCAA-56E2F0C6F591@gmail.com> References: <1EA5611A-3AFD-43D0-BCAA-56E2F0C6F591@gmail.com> Message-ID: I knew all that, Dan. You don't have to add footnotes every time I write, do you? bill w On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 3:11 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jul 8, 2020, at 8:08 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Fanatics are responsible for all of it: tearing down statues, taking > names off of buildings and so on. It is black and white thinking. If > Jefferson kept a slave then he is a bad person who has utterly no qualities > we want to emulate. I predict that cooler heads will prevail after some > token things, like moving statues to cemeteries and the like. For example, > Robert E. Lee was a very fine person who let his emotion of loyalty > overcome his rational side (a danger for all conservatives, I should add). > bill w > > > Except that Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves and bought slaves too. See: > > https://www.monticello.org/slavery/slavery-faqs/property/ > > It seems to me like he might?ve written about the evils of slavery, but he > didn?t do much to suffer material discomfort in that regard. > > And Robert E. Lee likewise owned at least two hundred slaves and was quite > cruel in that capacity. See: > > https://apnews.com/afs:Content:9009420680 > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 21:05:56 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 17:05:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <00dd01d6556a$00fe52d0$02faf870$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> <00dd01d6556a$00fe52d0$02faf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 4:55 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > There?s no point in blaming the governor: no matter what he did, there > would be suffering. Other than President Xi, I don?t see any clear fault. > He was a bastard for trying to cover it up as long as he could, giving it a > chance to escape and infect the entire planet. Other than him, I don?t > really see any spectacular failures. > > > > spike > > > I agree with everything you wrote with one addition. Beyond Xi, I lay full blame at the feet of the WHO. Not only were they complicit with China, they actively engaged in the cover up while extolling the virtues of China's response. The current head of the WHO makes a mockery of the organization. His previous accomplishments include allegedly covering up cholera outbreaks in Eithiopia https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/health/candidate-who-director-general-ethiopia-cholera-outbreaks.html so I'm not surprised how well he did working with the Chinese on theirs. Additionally, the WHO will not even acknowledge that Taiwan exists as a free sovereignty. Personally, I'm glad we're in the process of leaving the WHO. The money saved can be better spent somewhere else. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Wed Jul 8 21:11:47 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 17:11:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <1EA5611A-3AFD-43D0-BCAA-56E2F0C6F591@gmail.com> References: <1EA5611A-3AFD-43D0-BCAA-56E2F0C6F591@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7010FECD-3E11-4344-BF2B-A0896D1681E7@alumni.virginia.edu> > On Jul 8, 2020, at 8:08 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > If Jefferson kept a slave then he is a bad person who has utterly no qualities we want to emulate. Come on now, that?s awfully black and white. Mr. Jefferson (I went to UVA so we have to do that) even had a son (or possibly more children) with one of his slaves. Raped a slave that resulted in a pregnancy I should probably more accurately say. Mr. Jefferson or anybody else that has done some not-so-respectable or even atrocious things still may have positive qualities. I don?t mean to imply that the ends justify the means because I don?t support that idea. I just mean that some people who do bad things can also do good things and have ?qualities we want to emulate? nonetheless. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 21:19:14 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 14:19:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> <00dd01d6556a$00fe52d0$02faf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011e01d6556d$6e973d90$4bc5b8b0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2020 2:06 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Dylan Distasio Subject: Re: [ExI] Sweden On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 4:55 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: There?s no point in blaming the governor: no matter what he did, there would be suffering. Other than President Xi, I don?t see any clear fault. He was a bastard for trying to cover it up as long as he could, giving it a chance to escape and infect the entire planet. Other than him, I don?t really see any spectacular failures. spike >?I agree with everything you wrote with one addition. Beyond Xi, I lay full blame at the feet of the WHO? Thanks for pointing that out Dylan. That outfit gave out bad advice at every opportunity. >?Personally, I'm glad we're in the process of leaving the WHO. The money saved can be better spent somewhere else? Ja, or not spent. There isn?t the money now. There is no magic means of producing the money. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 21:20:28 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 16:20:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: <7010FECD-3E11-4344-BF2B-A0896D1681E7@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <1EA5611A-3AFD-43D0-BCAA-56E2F0C6F591@gmail.com> <7010FECD-3E11-4344-BF2B-A0896D1681E7@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: Henry, you missed my meaning. That black and white thing was sarcastic. I love Jefferson and all the slave owning founders. It's the purists and the fanatics that are flaming this fire. bill w On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 4:17 PM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Jul 8, 2020, at 8:08 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-cha > wrote: > > If Jefferson kept a slave then he is a bad person who has utterly no > qualities we want to emulate. > > > Come on now, that?s awfully black and white. Mr. Jefferson (I went to UVA > so we have to do that) even had a son (or possibly more children) with > one of his slaves. Raped a slave that resulted in a pregnancy I should > probably more accurately say. Mr. Jefferson or anybody else that has done > some not-so-respectable or even atrocious things still may have positive > qualities. I don?t mean to imply that the ends justify the means because I > don?t support that idea. I just mean that some people who do bad things can > also do good things and have ?qualities we want to emulate? nonetheless. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 22:57:43 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 15:57:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sweden Message-ID: wrote: snip > There are plenty of us who can't tell the difference between the parties you mention. I can't. That might have been the case in the past, but currently there is a huge difference in the behavior of the people in the parties. Champaign?Urbana is an amazing example. One of the cities is heavily Republican, the other is mostly Democrats. The mask wearing difference between the two is remarkable. It is close to religious behavior. Anyway, it's not hard to tell which city you are in just by the percentage of people who are wearing masks. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 23:16:53 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 16:16:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment Message-ID: wrote: snip >>...AI fighting robots may be coming, but they are not here yet... > Actually I was thinking of firearms. People still have to point them and fire. snip >...Ah, we *have* evolved into bulbous-headed creatures. Ever looked at the cranial capacity of Australopithecines? William Calvin thinks the big brain evolved to support accurate throwing, something we can do and chimps can't... I have long been interested in that notion since I was introduced to it. The hand and shoulder structure is different between chimps and humans. The notion is that protochimps/protohumans diverged because one guy figured out how to hunt by hurling stones at prey. Actually, the pre human adaptation was probably throwing rocks at lions. Calvin thinks the "hand axes" that are found over at least two million years of sediment were thrown like a discus into animals at a water hole. snip > Hikers find a good example of prey (marmots) If you have been following the news lately, this is a good way to get plague. snip >>...Some traits like status seeking we probably don't want to turn off... > That depends on the circumstances. It is easy enough to imagine status seeking as a mixed bag or even a maladaptive trait, depending on the situation. I mentioned Federal Judges as an example of trading income for status, but I can't think of other cases where seeking status is maladaptive. Can you think up examples? Keith From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 23:31:18 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 19:31:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 12:57 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > War mode can be kept from developing by keeping the income per capita > stable or slowly rising. > This has been bugging me: how do you know that? How do you experimentally verify any evolutionary psychology theories? -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 8 23:45:29 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 16:45:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003b01d65581$dcdbc1e0$969345a0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat >...Actually, the pre human adaptation was probably throwing rocks at lions. Calvin thinks the "hand axes" that are found over at least two million years of sediment were thrown like a discus into animals at a water hole. Hunting with sharpened frisbee, cool. That is a most interesting concept for many reasons: it is easy enough to imagine the proto-humans figuring out how to make them with chipped flint and figuring out how to hurl them with deadly results. Reasoning: the bean-em-with-the-fastball approach would only work on smaller game usually, with the occasional bop on the head for the bigger stuff, but in general wouldn't be lethal. A frisbee stone would produce a gash which would slow the beast enough that it could be caught with a group working together. > >...Hikers find a good example of prey (marmots) >...If you have been following the news lately, this is a good way to get plague... Ja, I do not recommend devouring rodents. snip >>>...Some traits like status seeking we probably don't want to turn off... >>.... That depends on the circumstances. It is easy enough to imagine > status seeking as a mixed bag or even a maladaptive trait, depending on the situation. >...I mentioned Federal Judges as an example of trading income for status, but I can't think of other cases where seeking status is maladaptive. Can you think up examples? Keith _______________________________________________ Keith there are pleeeenty of examples of trading income for status, such as a smart person going into academia rather than research or industry. Another one I can think of is doing missionary work. That one is tangled up with other motives, good old pure selfless altruism is what I would like to think, but it also raises one's status in a church. Those who have been there know the story. Enlisting in the military is another. Doing any kind of volunteer work might be considered giving away free time or potential income for status (well kinda (that one might be a bit of a stretch (I can't detect any status I am getting from my school volunteer stuff (but I have gained insights (and discovered how deep is my well of patience.))))) But status seeking is certainly costly in plenty of ways: really expensive sneakers, rolex watches, high-end cars for instance. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 23:54:35 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 18:54:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I mentioned Federal Judges as an example of trading income for status, but I can't think of other cases where seeking status is maladaptive. Can you think up examples? Keith I do not agree that seeking judgeship is maladaptive. Less money, more status may be exactly what they want. Sure, they'd like to be paid more, but if money were that important they would not be seeking the judgeships, right? More status, more recognition, could lead to political advantages later on. It isn't about money, I figure. bill w On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 6:19 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > wrote: > > snip > > >>...AI fighting robots may be coming, but they are not here yet... > > > Actually I was thinking of firearms. > > People still have to point them and fire. > > snip > > >...Ah, we *have* evolved into bulbous-headed creatures. Ever looked at > the > cranial capacity of Australopithecines? William Calvin thinks the big > brain > evolved to support accurate throwing, something we can do and chimps > can't... > > I have long been interested in that notion since I was introduced to it. > The hand and shoulder structure is different between chimps and humans. > The > notion is that protochimps/protohumans diverged because one guy figured out > how to hunt by hurling stones at prey. > > Actually, the pre human adaptation was probably throwing rocks at > lions. Calvin thinks the "hand axes" that are found over at least two > million years of sediment were thrown like a discus into animals at a > water hole. > > snip > > > Hikers find a good example of prey (marmots) > > If you have been following the news lately, this is a good way to get > plague. > > snip > > >>...Some traits like status seeking we probably don't want to turn off... > > > That depends on the circumstances. It is easy enough to imagine status > seeking as a mixed bag or even a maladaptive trait, depending on the > situation. > > I mentioned Federal Judges as an example of trading income for status, > but I can't think of other cases where seeking status is maladaptive. > Can you think up examples? > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 02:17:19 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 19:17:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A93A03E-A1E5-4776-868B-356D7D23B20D@gmail.com> I'm not footnoting what you said, but trying to point out that you're minimizing what Jefferson and Lee did. This isn't to say Jefferson had some good ideas and did some good things, but it's not like he merely 'kept a slave' as bad as that alone would be. He literally owned _hundreds_ of slaves, even bought a few during his lifetime, emancipated very few, and has a fairly bad record with slavery for someone supposedly enlightened on things like -- you guessed it -- freedom and slavery. It seems to me that he never let his enlightened views get in the way of his financial prosperity or his material enjoyments.* This also goes for how he tended to punish slaves: letting others do it when he wasn't around, sometimes even selling them to worse masters.** This tells us something very important about the man. It means he didn't walk the walk as much as talk the talk. Lee is much worse, in my opinion. He didn't have a record as a activist for freedom or against slavery. He was a military man who fought to preserve a slave society. I don't understand what people see in him beyond that. What's the 'rational side' of Lee that I missed? The statues put up to honor him were put in place mainly by the UDC -- basically a White supremacist group promoting the Lost Cause view of the South and trying to soften the image of the slave period, of segregation, and of Jim Crow. This isn't a footnote. (As a general, too, one might criticize Lee, but that's another matter for the historian and military specialist. His reckless campaigns cost his men's lives. He was mainly victorious going against timid, slow, and inept adversaries. Sure, at a tactical level, he was quite good, but strategically, he depended on the other side making mistakes and was still wasteful in the process. Yet a hagiography exists of him as a great general. But I take it you weren't going over this aspect of his life.) I hardly think people who call into question commemorating these two are fanatics guilty of black and white thinking. Again, not footnoting you but disagreeing with your attitude and assessment here. And, sure, just about any person is mixed, but it's not like every person wrote glowingly about freedom yet kept hundreds of slaves. ('course, there's something to be said that owners of slaves are more likely to be aware of encroachments on their freedom, but this is the acute awareness of the hypocrite.) As an addendum for those who argue about this is applying today's moral standards to people who lived long ago, the problem is there were enlightened people back in the 18th century who condemned slavery. This wasn't a lunatic fringe view back then. By 1800, the year Jefferson was elected president, seven states had already outlawed slavery. And it was outlawed in Vermont since 1770! It wasn't like Jefferson was living in the Bronze Age. (In fact, slavery had been outlawed in many places centuries before Jefferson.) Georgia banned slavery in 1735 only to have it re-instituted in 1751. Lee has it even worse, though Lee was not anti-slavery. His time is much later, when any enlightened person had even less reason to support slavery. Yet he didn't take that step, AFAIK, and as, in fact, quite cruel as a slave owner. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst * See this article on the explanation of why Jefferson likely became silent on the slavery issue once he discovered slavery earned him hefty profits: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/ ** See https://foundersandslavery.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/the-wrecking-of-a-reputation-thomas-jefferson-slavery/ and compare to James Madison, who tended to be more lenient approach: '... but cannot think of punishing him [a slave he brought to a free state] by transportation merely for coveting that liberty for which we have paid the price of so much blood, and have proclaimed so often to be the right, & worthy the pursuit, of every human being.' https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/james-madison On Jul 8, 2020, at 2:03 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > I knew all that, Dan. You don't have to add footnotes every time I write, do you? bill w > >> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 3:11 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >>> On Jul 8, 2020, at 8:08 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> Fanatics are responsible for all of it: tearing down statues, taking names off of buildings and so on. It is black and white thinking. If Jefferson kept a slave then he is a bad person who has utterly no qualities we want to emulate. I predict that cooler heads will prevail after some token things, like moving statues to cemeteries and the like. For example, Robert E. Lee was a very fine person who let his emotion of loyalty overcome his rational side (a danger for all conservatives, I should add). >>> bill w >> >> Except that Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves and bought slaves too. See: >> >> https://www.monticello.org/slavery/slavery-faqs/property/ >> >> It seems to me like he might?ve written about the evils of slavery, but he didn?t do much to suffer material discomfort in that regard. >> >> And Robert E. Lee likewise owned at least two hundred slaves and was quite cruel in that capacity. See: >> >> https://apnews.com/afs:Content:9009420680 >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 03:31:44 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 20:31:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] steve is gone for now Message-ID: I know a bit more about this now. Steven Van Sickle was the first person who died from COVID-19 that I knew fairly well. He was president of Alcor before Tanya. His suspension did not go well. Keith > He was an occasional poster here for a long time. A local, worked with a startup doing research on tissue preservation headed by Tanya Jones who was Max?s predecessor as Alcor director. Steve and I used to go to lunch once in a while, then go back and talk about feedback control mechanisms that could be used in his research. He was a hell of a good guy, kindhearted, smart as a whip. He will be missed. BillW I regret you never had a chance to meet him. From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jul 9 07:23:33 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 08:23:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] difficult (?) puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 08/07/2020 22:19, Henry Rivera wrote: >> On Jul 8, 2020, at 8:08 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> > wrote: >> ? If Jefferson kept a slave then he is a bad person who has utterly >> no qualities we want to emulate. > > Come on now, that?s awfully black and white That's preciselly the point he's making. You're quoting out of context here, which makes it sound like that's billw's opinion, rather than an illustration of a fanatical point of view. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 10:35:56 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 06:35:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sweden In-Reply-To: <00dd01d6556a$00fe52d0$02faf870$@rainier66.com> References: <007001d6552e$e5432dd0$afc98970$@rainier66.com> <004201d6553b$b6f0bcb0$24d23610$@rainier66.com> <000001d65547$2a632d30$7f298790$@rainier66.com> <004601d6554e$014f90d0$03eeb270$@rainier66.com> <00dd01d6556a$00fe52d0$02faf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 4:57 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Other than President Xi, I don?t see any clear fault. He was a bastard > for trying to cover it up* I agree that President Xi was a bastard for trying to cover up the epidemic in the very earliest days because if he had not other countries would've had two or three weeks of extra warning time to prepare for the disaster that most could have used to good advantage. Most countries but not all. An extra two or three weeks of warning would not have helped the USA one iota nor would it have helped Brazil or the United Kingdom because all three were led by a similar type of leader. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 11:52:00 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 07:52:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 7:19 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> I mentioned Federal Judges as an example of trading income for status, > but I can't think of other cases where seeking status is maladaptive. Can > you think up examples?* In the context of Evolutionary psychology trading income for status is not particularly relevant, Evolution doesn't care how much money you have in your bank account, trading reproductive success for status is much more interesting and I can think of a few examples; Catholic priests would be one at least in the days before the revelations about extensive child molestation broke back when they still had quite a bit of status. Another example would be the head of a suicide cult such as Heaven's Gate. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 12:15:01 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 13:15:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Autonomous mobile robot chemist 1000 times faster than human Message-ID: Robot scientists have solved the biggest challenge in chemistry Prepare to meet your new lab mate. 8 July 2020 Using laser scanning and touch feedback to navigate its surroundings instead of vision, this robot has no need for a human-like face. Likewise, instead of manipulating vials with precarious human arms or moving around the lab on unstable human-like legs, this robot can autonomously wheel itself around a lab and complete science experiments using an incredibly sensitive and precise single arm. What did it do? -- In this study, the robot was tasked with helping scientists discover a new photocatalyst -- a chemical that when exposed to sunlight would separate into hydrogen and water. These catalysts are incredibly important for clean energy production because they allow hydrogen to be collected without fossil fuel use. But finding an optimized catalyst is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Because the experiment space of this problem is so vast and would take human researchers months to explore, the scientists used their robot to do the same work in a little over a week. With parameters (such as what chemicals would be used and what questions would be asked) set in place by human researchers, the robot autonomously chose between 98 million different possible experiments and autonomously conducted them in the lab to discover the optimized chemical substance for this catalyst. And, after completing initial experiments, the robot was also able to refine its discovery using five hypotheses to narrow in even more on the most optimized formulae. At the end of the process, the robot had discovered a new catalyst that was six-times more reactive than those previously discovered. ----------------------- BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 12:27:51 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 08:27:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: <006001d6552a$588077d0$09816770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 10:56 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Some of you regard emotion as a stumbling block to reason In general emotion is not necessarily a stumbling block to reason, in fact I think a certain amount of emotion is needed for high level reasoning because you need it to decide what to reason about. However in some circumstances emotion can be a severe handicap to effective reasoning, such as when greater emotional attachment is placed on political ideology than on the scientific method. > *We have little emotional control even as adults.* Yes but imagine how things would be if they were different and we had instant conscious control over all our emotions. I think that might actually be possible in the next few decades and it could be the explanation for the Fermi paradox. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 15:23:14 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 10:23:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hero worship Message-ID: Hero worship is not for me. Heroes are mythical creatures that are essentially perfect in all regards and no human being comes up to that. So we have to accept the feet of clay that many people want to attribute to our national heroes to bring them down and destroy the myths. We do love our myths and given chances we will create them, facts be damned. It is how many religions have started. Jefferson is said to have not freed his slaves. Wrong. His will says he did, but the executors sold them anyway to reduce the huge debt he built up buying books and whatnot, which eventually benefited all of us. Washington did free his slaves, but is highly suspected of sending supplies meant for his army to his plantation. As for just keeping slaves, just about every plantation owner did so. Why wasn't the Emancipation Proclamation issued in the late 1700s? Same reason I suppose, as the reason the Civil War was fought - money. One more reason that I have not seen anywhere: many considered the Africans as lesser humans - savages. What would happen if you turned them loose on society? Great danger. Anyhow, anyone who wants to find feet of clay can find it in anyone. You can find things that are bad by current standards in every single hero we have had: Kennedy, Jackson; all of them. So heroes will only exist in myths. Why can't we live with that? Extremists and nitpickers and purists are people who have to find grumbles about our country and our Constitution and Bill of Rights, which I think, not being a great historian, are the best in history - with the amendments of course -most of them. So join the bashers if you will. You will get no respect from me, for sure. Some of you are just small people: mean, petty, picky. You know who you are. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 15:31:21 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 10:31:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <936A6279-A539-4612-8540-B246DFD9787B@gmail.com> >Some of you are just small people: mean, petty, picky. You know who you are. ? bill w That?s me. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 15:59:22 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 10:59:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: <936A6279-A539-4612-8540-B246DFD9787B@gmail.com> References: <936A6279-A539-4612-8540-B246DFD9787B@gmail.com> Message-ID: Sorry to hear it. I would never have guessed from your posts. bill w On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 10:32 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >Some of you are just small people: mean, petty, picky. You know who you > are. ? bill w > > That?s me. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 9 16:43:31 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 09:43:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: <936A6279-A539-4612-8540-B246DFD9787B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <002f01d65610$26d58040$748080c0$@rainier66.com> Sorry to hear it. I would never have guessed from your posts. bill w On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 10:32 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat > wrote: >Some of you are just small people: mean, petty, picky. You know who you are. ? bill w That?s me. Nor would I, SR. Regarding picky: eh, this is the online version of a think tank. That?s what we?re for: tossing out crazy ideas and playing with them. BillW, what if? a psychologist comments ?you know who you are? when one is having an identity crisis? Or has severe amnesia? Just sayin. The question opens another mystery: when one is just sayin, is it mandatory to drop the g? Have you ever heard it with the g? Neither have I. And if a commie makes an absurd suggestion, is she just sayink? And what if Popeye is just sayin? Does it revert back to just saying? The mind boggles. BillW, SR, we love your ideas. You and the others make this such a fun place to outwardly hang. Pick on, be good to each other, play ball! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 16:47:04 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 09:47:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment Message-ID: Dave Sill wrote: snip > This has been bugging me: how do you know that? How do you experimentally verify any evolutionary psychology theories? For the most part, you don't. It's theory, models, and logic. Not all science is experimental, for example astronomy. EP theory is dead simple. It's just the recognition that biological evolution applies to behavior as well as physical structure. Do you feel uneasy walking close to the edge of a clift and move back from the edge? Where else but genes could that behavior ultimately come from? Eventually we will be able to trace behavior, such as seen in capture-bonding to the specific brain circuits and from there to the genes involved in building those brain circuits. For the cited, >> War mode can be kept from developing by keeping the income per capita >> stable or slowly rising. There are lots of examples where people went to war or similar kinds of social disruption when things were looking bleak. Can you think of a case where a group of people with a bright future outlook went to war? Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 17:30:56 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 13:30:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 11:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > As for just keeping slaves, just about every plantation owner did so. True, and unlike Washington and Jefferson most plantation owners didn't free their slaves even in their wills, sure you could say its too little too late but historical figures have to be judged by the standards of their own day. By standards of 1760 they were ahead of the curve but in 1860 most Americans would not be willing to kill and commit treason to preserve the institution of slavery, but Robert E Lee did both and so the world would have been a better place if he had never been born. Whatever their faults that could not be said about Washington or Jefferson; we honor them in spite of the fact that they were slaveowners not because of it, but without slavery there wouldn't have been a Civil War and history wouldn't even remember who the hell Robert E Lee was. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 17:59:48 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 10:59:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment Message-ID: wrote: -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat >...Actually, the pre human adaptation was probably throwing rocks at lions. Calvin thinks the "hand axes" that are found over at least two million years of sediment were thrown like a discus into animals at a water hole. > Hunting with sharpened frisbee, cool. You want to read the chapter "Hand-ax Heaven" in Ascent of Mind. > That is a most interesting concept for many reasons: it is easy enough to imagine the proto-humans figuring out how to make them with chipped flint and figuring out how to hurl them with deadly results. Reasoning: the bean-em-with-the-fastball approach would only work on smaller game usually, with the occasional bop on the head for the bigger stuff, but in general wouldn't be lethal. A frisbee stone would produce a gash which would slow the beast enough that it could be caught with a group working together. Calvin and others who studied this think the spinning sharp rock banging into an animal's back would cause it to fall because of reflexes. The rest of the herd runs over it, followed by early humans with clubs. snip >>...I mentioned Federal Judges as an example of trading income for status, but I can't think of other cases where seeking status is maladaptive. Can you think up examples? I should not have implied what judges do is maladaptive. But generally, I doubt their increased status translates into getting more nookey or additional children. Such is one of the mismatches between today and the stone age. > Keith there are pleeeenty of examples of trading income for status, such as a smart person going into academia rather than research or industry. Another one I can think of is doing missionary work. That one is tangled up with other motives, good old pure selfless altruism is what I would like to think, but it also raises one's status in a church. Those who have been there know the story. Enlisting in the military is another. > Doing any kind of volunteer work might be considered giving away free time or potential income for status (well kinda (that one might be a bit of a stretch (I can't detect any status I am getting from my school volunteer stuff (but I have gained insights (and discovered how deep is my well of patience.))))) > But status seeking is certainly costly in plenty of ways: really expensive sneakers, rolex watches, high-end cars for instance. Sure, but if you have the income, higher status makes (men anyway) more attractive to women. It's not fundamentally different from dragging a large chunk of meat back to camp. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 23:38:59 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 18:38:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] mass transit/banning cars Message-ID: The first one questions the correlation between the virus and mass transit. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/fear-transit-bad-cities/612979/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/opinion/ban-cars-manhattan-cities.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=OpEd%20Columnists bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 00:43:52 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 17:43:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62A36762-DD55-420E-91C8-BABCD9854DF3@gmail.com> On Thursday, July 9, 2020, 10:37:32 AM PDT, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >> On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 11:25 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >> As for just keeping slaves, just about every plantation owner did so. > > True, Trivial though because the plantation system in British North America and then in the US was a slave system. So, duh, owning a plantation meant almost certainly owning slaves. So, it's like say the owning of a big corporation has employees. > and unlike Washington and Jefferson most plantation owners didn't > free their slaves even in their wills, sure you could say its too little too > late but historical figures have to be judged by the standards of their > own day. Actually, one can do both: judge by standards of the times or those of today. The problem with their times is that many people back then thought slavery was horrible. In the Anglosphere, for instance, Quakers had already been agitating against slavery since about 1750 -- a quarter century before the War of Independence. Also, there were places where it was illegal, including in the US during the lifetimes of both Washington and Jefferson. In particular, the New England states and New York and Pennsylvannia were also free states by 1800. And the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory (which basically became the core of the modern Midwest). So, being anti-slavery wasn't some lunatic fringe position only citizens of Cloud Cuckoo Land held. Now, sure, again, big plantation owners generally owned slaves. But this hardly excuses slavery back then. Again, this is sort of the argument along the lines of slave owners would have to give up a comfortable, fairly wealthy lifestyle to free slaves so they should get credit for not being quick to free their slaves. Jefferson's case here is telling because he started out being outspoken against slavery. If you read the early draft of the Declaration of Independence, he pushed an anti-slavery position. But by the 1790s, he became silent on the issue. Why? Well, one speculation is that he discovered slaves paid a nice profit if one figured in their children: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/ This doesn't paint a flattering portrait of him by the standards of the day. Instead, it paints one of a man whose political ideals were servant to his creature comforts. And the idea that that's wrong precedes us by thousands of years. It's not an invention of 21st century ideologues. > By standards of 1760 they were ahead of the curve See above. Again, it looks more like he backslid. By the way, Jefferson was 17 in 1760, so that's not a good date to pick to judge his moral growth or standing. (Washington was 28 and one can blame his ambition by that age for playing a major role in fomenting the Seven Years War. By that age, he'd married into a plantation-owning family.) Again, no, there were behind the curve. There were abolitionists like John Woolman (1720-1772) and John Laurens (1754-1782). These folks were ahead of the curve. There's also a longer history of antislavery in the world, including in Europe. To make it seem like the world was waiting for Washington and Jefferson to free slaves in their wills -- as if that were the cutting edge of abolition at that time -- is to ignore and diminish so many others to favor a few elite hypocrites in service of patriotism. General rule: politicians are unlikely to be the cutting edge anyhow. Even someone as seeming enlightened as Jefferson wasn?t so much an originator of new ideas as a conduit. His most well known political work, the Declaration, comes from ideas in Trenchard and Gordon. (And those two were conveying and applying ideas from big guns like John Locke and Algernon Sydney.) > but in 1860 > most Americans would not be willing to kill and commit treason to > preserve the institution of slavery, but Robert E Lee did both and so > the world would have been a better place if he had never been born. > Whatever their faults that could not be said about Washington or > Jefferson; we honor them in spite of the fact that they were slaveowners > not because of it, but without slavery there wouldn't have been a Civil > War and history wouldn't even remember who the hell Robert E Lee was. Show Quoted Content > but in 1860 > most Americans would not be willing to kill and commit treason to > preserve the institution of slavery, but Robert E Lee did both and so > the world would have been a better place if he had never been born. > Whatever their faults that could not be said about Washington or > Jefferson; we honor them in spite of the fact that they were slaveowners > not because of it, but without slavery there wouldn't have been a Civil > War and history wouldn't even remember who the hell Robert E Lee was. Agree with that last sentiment. Lee would be unknown save for military history buffs for his role in the Mexican-American War. Then again, without slavery, that war might not have happened either. Why? The Texas Revolution which resulted in an independent Texas which was later annexed by the US was mainly about slavery. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, but Texans, which were somewhat autonomous under Mexico, held slaves. Thus, the impetus to secede from Mexico. The latter desire by Texas to be annexed by the US was mainly about the fear Mexico might retake Texas. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 00:50:26 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 17:50:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: <936A6279-A539-4612-8540-B246DFD9787B@gmail.com> References: <936A6279-A539-4612-8540-B246DFD9787B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47A0B377-241D-4246-83D0-33DE46F23D0E@gmail.com> On Jul 9, 2020, at 8:32 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > > >Some of you are just small people: mean, petty, picky. You know who you are. ? bill w > > That?s me. In my view, it's better to be seen as 'mean, petty, picky' (by one person here) than to overlook the serious flaws of leaders and national heroes. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 03:11:31 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 22:11:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: <47A0B377-241D-4246-83D0-33DE46F23D0E@gmail.com> References: <936A6279-A539-4612-8540-B246DFD9787B@gmail.com> <47A0B377-241D-4246-83D0-33DE46F23D0E@gmail.com> Message-ID: I actually do support hero worship. I understand the impetus, and at a certain level, the need, for hero worship. Humans engage in hero worship because it creates for them a perfect role model to look up to, someone with only good qualities, whom they strive to emulate. Humans naturally and subconsciously model behavior. If someone only has poor behavior modeled for them and they choose to consciously model after their own ?white-washed?, idealized hero-figure, I see that as reasonable. I doubt that the majority of people who engage in hero worship are seeking to emulate the real life negative traits of their hero ? they?re trying to emulate their perfect fantasy figure. And usually, I don?t think that?s a bad thing. The vast majority of people I have met who were Robert E Lee fanboys didn?t think of him as a slave owner or as defending slavery. They?re the type who doesn?t see the Civil War as about slavery. They view the ?Lost Cause? as a people claiming their sovereignty, but as the US claimed theirs from England. As defending the right to self-determinantion. As defending and protecting the culture and atmosphere of the South. One can find a similar and surprising trend in Japan. You can find memorials to those who died defending the old government, and those who died establishing the new government within a stone?s throw of each other. There are many who are honored not for fighting ?against? progress, but rather for putting honor and loyalty above their own lives. Hero worship of ?bad? people doesn?t usually come from a bad place, I think. SR Ballard > On Jul 9, 2020, at 7:50 PM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Jul 9, 2020, at 8:32 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> >Some of you are just small people: mean, petty, picky. You know who you are. ? bill w >> >> That?s me. > > In my view, it's better to be seen as 'mean, petty, picky' (by one person here) than to overlook the serious flaws of leaders and national heroes. > > Regards, > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 10 03:36:07 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 20:36:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: <936A6279-A539-4612-8540-B246DFD9787B@gmail.com> <47A0B377-241D-4246-83D0-33DE46F23D0E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <019201d6566b$3fd74410$bf85cc30$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] hero worship >? I actually do support hero worship. I understand the impetus, and at a certain level, the need, for hero worship? SR Ballard Hi SR, this notion has been rattling around in my head like a golf ball in a 55 gallon drum. I read two posters who commented about expecting a POTUS to be a descent respectable person, someone the young people might emulate and admire. Then something occurred to me: both of those posters were older than I am. In the most attitude-formative years of my generation, Nixon became entangled in the Watergate scandal and was personally vilified. People of my generation came to expect that POTUS was a bad person, which led many of us into libertarianism, certainly into not expecting POTUS to be a descent person. With the possible exceptions of Gerald Ford and to some extent Jimmy Carter, every one of their successors were flawed in some fairly significant way. Think about the American children who have come of age in the last few years: they will develop attitudes which will last a lifetime. They will never look to POTUS, probably no entertainers nor sports stars as heroes. I sure don?t. I see people who created a bunch of jobs by carving out some new significant business or scientists who discovered some cool new thing as heroes for today, worthy of emulation. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 13:48:53 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 08:48:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] overlooking Message-ID: To me it's not overlooking in how we judge our Founders. It is accepting the bad with the good. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Cliche' but true. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 10 14:35:36 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 07:35:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] overlooking In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005801d656c7$6083a850$218af8f0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] overlooking To me it's not overlooking in how we judge our Founders. It is accepting the bad with the good. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Cliche' but true. bill w Ja. Otherwise the farther back in time you go, the worse they get. Our perception of right and wrong changes over time for perfectly understandable reasons: we get to see how things turned out. The old timers were guessing at how things would turn out. We read about it. The old ones didn?t even have internet. The founding fathers recognized that the continent could not sustain a prolonged armed struggle between states, or a system whereby every state was a completely independent nation (which is why they didn?t allow the Green Mountain Boys to form Vermont into its own country or the Kanawhans to form an independent nation.) The founders had to accept compromises in order to get the states to work together. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 16:38:24 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 11:38:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] overlooking In-Reply-To: <005801d656c7$6083a850$218af8f0$@rainier66.com> References: <005801d656c7$6083a850$218af8f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yes - watching laws and sausage being made. Toss some bones to the people who are just wrong and try to get by with compromises. And amendments. I will reprise my opinion of Odysseus here: I think that he was a thug and I don't care if the people at the time thought he was a hero. Rape, pillage, murder are just not going down with me as acceptable no matter what. bill w On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 9:37 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] overlooking > > > > To me it's not overlooking in how we judge our Founders. It is accepting > the bad with the good. > > > > Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. > > > > Cliche' but true. > > > > bill w > > > > > > Ja. Otherwise the farther back in time you go, the worse they get. Our > perception of right and wrong changes over time for perfectly > understandable reasons: we get to see how things turned out. The old > timers were guessing at how things would turn out. We read about it. The > old ones didn?t even have internet. > > > > The founding fathers recognized that the continent could not sustain a > prolonged armed struggle between states, or a system whereby every state > was a completely independent nation (which is why they didn?t allow the > Green Mountain Boys to form Vermont into its own country or the Kanawhans > to form an independent nation.) The founders had to accept compromises in > order to get the states to work together. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 17:02:05 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 12:02:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] article Message-ID: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of-blacks-what-the-data-says.html?smid=tw-share Interesting bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 18:09:49 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 11:09:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hero worship Message-ID: wrote: snip > I read two posters who commented about expecting a POTUS to be a descent respectable person, someone the young people might emulate and admire. Then something occurred to me: both of those posters were older than I am. In the most attitude-formative years of my generation, Nixon became entangled in the Watergate scandal and was personally vilified. The current situation makes a lot of people who lived through those times yearn for the honesty of Richard Nixon. > People of my generation came to expect that POTUS was a bad person, which led many of us into libertarianism, You might be right on this point, but I don't think so. I have known hundreds of libertarians, L5 Society was at least 80%. Close to all of them were memetically infected by either Ayn Rand (Randroids) or Robert Heinlein (Space Cadets). I can't think of any I know from those days who became libertarians (or Libertarians) as a result of being disgusted with conventional political hanky panky. Of course libertarianism (and extreme version, objectivism) is not a political philosophy that is compatible with elements of evolutionary psychology such as Hamilton's rule. I remember a discussion with one of the more rabid examples where he claimed it was the right thing (if given a choice) to kill the entire human race off if that was what it took for him to live. Hamilton's rule indicates that you should be willing to sacrifice your life if doing so saves enough copies of your genes. > certainly into not expecting POTUS to be a descent person. That's really sad. It bodes a really grim future for this country. > With the possible exceptions of Gerald Ford and to some extent Jimmy Carter, every one of their successors were flawed in some fairly significant way. All people are flawed in some way, but at least they were fairly competent. > Think about the American children who have come of age in the last few years: they will develop attitudes which will last a lifetime. They will never look to POTUS, probably no entertainers nor sports stars as heroes. How do you stretch this to entertainers and sports stars? Keith From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 10 18:50:09 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 11:50:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001201d656ea$f03d3f10$d0b7bd30$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Think about the American children who have come of age in the last few years: they will develop attitudes which will last a lifetime. They will never look to POTUS, probably no entertainers nor sports stars as heroes. How do you stretch this to entertainers and sports stars? Keith _______________________________________________ Eh, wishful thinking perhaps Keith. I fear for us as a society when we look for guidance to people whose talent is in reading scripts that others wrote. Thespians do not like to be typecast if they can avoid it. For that reason they will seek out bad guy roles wherever they can get them. Classic example Julie Andrews: she really wanted that role in the dark Victor Victoria. I want to always remember her as Sister Maria or Mary Poppins or Jerusha Bromley. Consider a very talented actor, Peter Sellers. He could be anybody. He did Dr. Strangelove who was based on Edward Teller. After having met the scientist, I realized that Peter Sellers could do Teller better than Teller could do himself. I found an video years ago with Sellers in which he admitted to the host with regard to his lackluster boring interview that he really needed a script. Otherwise he didn't know who he was supposed to be. There was no Sellers inside him. I think of that comment every time I see an entertainer expounding on matters outside their expertise: as a group they have no special insights, but it is slightly worse than that. Entertainers of all kinds, sports people, rock stars, actors and so forth have insights inferior in a way to the masses. Entertainers live in a distorted world but the masses choose leaders and we live in the real world. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 19:48:28 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 15:48:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 2:12 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: * >The current situation makes a lot of people who lived through those > times yearn for the honesty of Richard Nixon.* > I agree, there were several well documented occasions when Nixon was able to utter two or even three consecutive sentences without telling a single lie. Think of that! It really makes one nostalgic for good old Tricky Dick. > > *All people are flawed in some way, but at least they were fairly > competent.* I once saw a political bumper sticker that I agreed with completely, all it said was "*2020: ANY FUNCTIONAL ADULT*". John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 20:01:25 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 15:01:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] article behind paywall Message-ID: Police Killings of Blacks: Here Is What the Data Say [image: Tomiko Shine holding up a picture of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy fatally shot last year by a police officer in Cleveland, in a protest march.] Tomiko Shine holding up a picture of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy fatally shot last year by a police officer in Cleveland, in a protest march.Credit...Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press By Sendhil Mullainathan - Oct. 16, 2015 - - - - - - - 28 Tamir Rice. Eric Garner. Walter Scott. Michael Brown. Each killing raises a disturbing question: Would any of these people have been killed by police officers if they had been white? I have no special insight into the psychology of police officers or into the complicated forensics involved in such cases. Answering this question in any single situation can be difficult and divisive. Two outside experts this month concluded , for example, that the shooting of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy in Cleveland who was carrying a toy gun, was a ?reasonable? if tragic response. That will hardly be the last word on the subject. As an economist who has studied racial discrimination, I?ve begun to look at these deaths from a different angle. There is ample statistical evidence of large and persistent racial bias in other areas ? from labor markets to online retail markets. So I expected that police prejudice would be a major factor in accounting for the killings of African-Americans. But when I looked at the numbers, that?s not exactly what I found. I?m not saying that the police in these specific cases are free of racial bias. I can?t answer that question. But what the data does suggest is that eliminating the biases of all police officers would do little to materially reduce the total number of African-American killings. Police bias may well be a significant problem, but in accounting for why some of these encounters turn into killings, it is swamped by other, bigger problems that plague our society, our economy and our criminal justice system. To understand how this can be, let us start with the statistics on police killings. According to the F.B.I.?s Supplementary Homicide Report, 31.8 percent of people shot by the police were African-American, a proportion more than two and a half times the 13.2 percent of African-Americans in the general population. While this data may be imperfect, other sources in individual states or cities, such as in California or New York City, show very similar patterns. The data is unequivocal. Police killings *are *a race problem: African-Americans *are* being killed disproportionately and by a wide margin. And police bias may be responsible. But this data does not prove that biased police officers are more likely to shoot blacks in any given encounter. Instead, there is another possibility: It is simply that ? for reasons that may well include police bias ? African-Americans have a very large number of encounters with police officers. Every police encounter contains a risk: The officer might be poorly trained, might act with malice or simply make a mistake, and civilians might do something that is perceived as a threat. The omnipresence of guns exaggerates all these risks. Such risks exist for people of any race ? after all, many people killed by police officers were not black. But having more encounters with police officers, even with officers entirely free of racial bias, can create a greater risk of a fatal shooting. Arrest data lets us measure this possibility. For the entire country, 28.9 percent of arrestees were African-American. This number is not very different from the 31.8 percent of police-shooting victims who were African-Americans. If police discrimination were a big factor in the actual killings, we would have expected a larger gap between the arrest rate and the police-killing rate. This in turn suggests that removing police racial bias will have little effect on the killing rate. Suppose each arrest creates an equal risk of shooting for both African-Americans and whites. In that case, with the current arrest rate, 28.9 percent of all those killed by police officers would still be African-American. This is only slightly smaller than the 31.8 percent of killings we actually see, and it is much greater than the 13.2 percent level of African-Americans in the overall population. If the major problem is then that African-Americans have so many more encounters with police, we must ask why. Of course, with this as well, police prejudice may be playing a role. After all, police officers decide whom to stop or arrest. But this is too large a problem to pin on individual officers. First, the police are at least in part guided by suspect descriptions. And the descriptions provided by victims already show a large racial gap: Nearly 30 percent of reported offenders were black. So if the police simply stopped suspects at a rate matching these descriptions, African-Americans would be encountering police at a rate close to both the arrest and the killing rates. Second, the choice of where to police is mostly not up to individual officers. And police officers tend to be most active in poor neighborhoods, and African-Americans disproportionately live in poverty. In fact, the deeper you look, the more it appears that the race problem revealed by the statistics reflects a larger problem: the structure of our society, our laws and policies. The war on drugs illustrates this kind of racial bias. African-Americans are only slightly more likely to use drugs than whites. Yet, they are more than twice as likely to be arrested on drug-related charges. One reason is that drug sellers are being targeted more heavily than users. With fewer job options, low-income African-Americans have been disproportionately represented in the ranks of drug sellers. In addition, the drug laws penalize crack cocaine ? a drug more likely to be used by African-Americans ? far more harshly than powder cocaine. Laws and policies need not explicitly discriminate to effectively discriminate. As Anatole France wrote centuries ago, ?In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.? This is not just about drugs or law enforcement. Poverty plays an essential role in all of this. Jens Ludwig, an economist at the University of Chicago who also directs the Crime Lab there, points out: ?Living in a high-poverty neighborhood increases risk of violent-crime involvement, and in the most poor neighborhoods of the country, fully four out of five residents are black or Hispanic.? We will not sharply reduce police killings of African-Americans unless we understand the social institutions that intimately tie race and crime. In her book, ?The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,? Michelle Alexander argues that the American criminal justice system itself is an instrument of racial oppression. ?Mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race,? she says. Individual police officers did not set these economic policies that limited opportunities or create the harsh sentencing policies that turn minor crimes into lifetime sentences. We should eliminate police prejudice because it is wrong and because it undermines our democracy. It blights ? and all too often destroys ? lives. But there are also structural problems underpinning these killings. We are all responsible for those. Sendhil Mullainathan is a professor of economics at Harvard. Follow him on Twitter at @m_sendhil. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 20:10:19 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 15:10:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: <001201d656ea$f03d3f10$d0b7bd30$@rainier66.com> References: <001201d656ea$f03d3f10$d0b7bd30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike - did you see S.O.B.? I too have wondered about the adulation of movie stars. Looked at in a different light, they are people who make their living by pretending to be someone else. I think TV and movies are still magic to the common person. Some think that if it's on TV or in the movies, it's important, and furthermore, true. (Haven't I told the story of the soap opera female whose character gave birth? She received many cards and presents and gifts as though she was the character she played. (cue Inner Sanctum music; or Twilight Zone)). I was on TV after a speech about disaster relief and was given my two minutes of fame. Afterwards numerous people came up to me with glazed eyes saying "I saw you on TV!!!" They just had no idea I was such an important person. These were mostly faculty, BTW. Probably Educ. dept. bill w On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 1:52 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > > > > Think about the American children who have come of age in the last few > years: they will develop attitudes which will last a lifetime. They will > never look to POTUS, probably no entertainers nor sports stars as heroes. > > How do you stretch this to entertainers and sports stars? > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ > > > Eh, wishful thinking perhaps Keith. I fear for us as a society when we > look > for guidance to people whose talent is in reading scripts that others > wrote. > > Thespians do not like to be typecast if they can avoid it. For that reason > they will seek out bad guy roles wherever they can get them. Classic > example Julie Andrews: she really wanted that role in the dark Victor > Victoria. I want to always remember her as Sister Maria or Mary Poppins or > Jerusha Bromley. > > Consider a very talented actor, Peter Sellers. He could be anybody. He > did > Dr. Strangelove who was based on Edward Teller. After having met the > scientist, I realized that Peter Sellers could do Teller better than Teller > could do himself. I found an video years ago with Sellers in which he > admitted to the host with regard to his lackluster boring interview that he > really needed a script. Otherwise he didn't know who he was supposed to > be. > There was no Sellers inside him. > > I think of that comment every time I see an entertainer expounding on > matters outside their expertise: as a group they have no special insights, > but it is slightly worse than that. Entertainers of all kinds, sports > people, rock stars, actors and so forth have insights inferior in a way to > the masses. Entertainers live in a distorted world but the masses choose > leaders and we live in the real world. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 20:18:07 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 16:18:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A big advance in CRISPR gene-editing Message-ID: In an article published yesterday researchers report that they have tested thousands of random changes in the CRISPR protein used in gene editing to see if they could find one that produces fewer errors than the naturally occurring one currently used, and they did. They found an enzyme that made 93 times fewer mistakes, and the old one was already pretty good! High-fidelity SaCas9 identified by directional screening in human cells John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 20:43:39 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 13:43:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Adam_Bates_on_a_r=C3=A9pugnant_argument?= Message-ID: <206E5DC5-2E02-4E36-8BA7-9128C1AB3562@gmail.com> Since a few here have used an argument from historical relativism (I believe that?s what it?s called; correct me if I?m wrong), I felt this post from Adam Bates relevant. ________ On the repugnant argument that the founders' participation in slavery merely makes them "men of their time" and not monsters, here's an excerpt of British abolitionist Thomas Day's response to the Declaration of Independence. Written in 1776, it demonstrates quite clearly what "men of the time" were perfectly capable of understanding. ========= With what face, Sir, can he who has never respected the rights of nature in another, pretend to claim them in his own favor? How dare the inhabitants of the southern colonies speak of privileges and justice? Is money of so much more importance than life? Or have the Americans shared the dispensing power of Saint Peter's successors, to excuse their own observance of those rules which they impose on others? If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves. If men would be consistent, they must admit all the consequences of their own principles; and you and your countrymen are reduced to the dilemma of either acknowledging the rights of your negroes, or of surrendering your own. If there be certain natural and universal rights, as the Declarations of your Congress so repeatedly affirm, I wonder how the unfortunate Africans have incurred their forfeiture. Is it the antiquity, or the virtues, or the great qualities of the English-Americans which constitutes the difference, and entitles them to rights from which they totally exclude more than a fourth part of the species? Or do you choose to make use of that argument, which the great Montesquieu has thrown out as the severest ridicule, that they are black, and you white? that you have lank, long hair, while theirs is short and woolly? The more attentively you consider this subject, the more clearly you will perceive, that every plea, which can be advanced upon it, is the plea of interest and tyranny combatting humanity and truth. You cannot hide from yourself, that every title you can allege must be a title founded upon fraud or violence, and supported by open and avowed injustice. ? Can any thing be clearer, than that a man, who is born free, can never forfeit his inheritance by suffering oppression; and that it is a contradiction to urge a purchase of what no one has a right to sell? IN or does it make any difference, whether the unfortunate victim pass from one to another, or from one to a thousand masters, any more than whether a nation be enslaved by a first, or by a hundredth tyrant. There can be no prescription pleaded against truth and justice ; and the continuance of the evil is so far from justifying, that it is an exaggeration of the crime. What would you say to a man, in private life, who should pretend to be no thief, be- cause he only bought stolen goods ; or that he was no villain, because he did not forge a deed himself, but only paid another to do it, and enjoyed the estate by that honorable security? Yet this is literally the title which the Americans plead to the unfortunate inhabitants of Africa. You do not go to Africa to buy or steal your negroes ; perhaps, because you are too lazy and luxurious: but you encourage an infamous and pitiless race to do it for you, and conscientiously receive the fruits of their crimes. You do not, merciful men, reduce your fellow-creatures to servitude! No ? men of your independent spirits, that have taken up arms against the government that had protected and established them, rather than pay a tax of three-pence ; that have laid the axe to the root of all human authority, and, instead of drinking the bitter waters of civil abuses and prescriptive obedience, have ascended to the living fountain of truth, justice and nature, would never make flagitious attempts upon the liberties and happiness of their brethren! Yes, gentlemen, men of liberal minds like yours, acknowledge all mankind to be their equals. Leave hereditary tyrants and their flatterers to make distinctions unknown to nature, and to degrade one part of the species to brutes, while they equal the other with gods ! ? You know that this is the greatest of all corruptions ; and as such, you detest it : ? What ! are not all men naturally equal? And are not all civil distinctions, when legitimate, the permission of the people, and consequently subordinate to their power and control? Did you not carry the rights of men into the uncultivated desert and the howling wilderness? Not of Frenchmen, nor of Germans, nor of Englishmen, but of men; ? men, the first and supreme distinction, who, created for freedom and happiness, transport to every soil the inherent prerogatives of their nature. 'Rome n'est plus dans Rome, elle est partout ou je suis.' Yes, gentlemen, as you are no longer English, I hope you will please to be men ; and, as such, admit the whole human species to a participation of your inalienable rights. You will not, therefore, drag a trembling wretch from his cottage and his family ; you will not tear the child from the arms of his frantic mother, that they may drag on a loathsome existence in misery and chains ; you will not make depredations upon your unoffending neighbors, and, after having spread desolation over a fertile country, reduce the innocent inhabitants to servitude. To do this, you must be monsters, worse, I fear, than the majority of the House of Commons and the English ministry.* But you are men tremblingly alive to all the rights and feelings of the kind, and I believe, some of you at least, are Christians. Your worst actions, therefore, the greatest crimes to which even your enemies can object, are only that you are the voluntary causes of all these mischiefs! You, you encourage the English pirate to violate the laws of faith and hospitality, and stimulate him to new excesses by purchasing the fruits of his rapine. Your avarice is the torch of treachery and civil war, which desolates the shores of Africa, and shakes destruction on half the majestic species of man! ________ Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 20:46:22 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 13:46:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] overlooking In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6FB92D98-A878-489B-AC6A-00804F41CFED@gmail.com> On Jul 10, 2020, at 6:51 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote:? > > To me it's not overlooking in how we judge our Founders. It is accepting the bad with the good. > > Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. > > Cliche' but true. > > bill w Except that when someone pointed out the bathwater, you went on a tare about how it [slavery] was just a footnote and later said the person was 'mean, petty, picky.' From my vantage post, it appears you want to ignore the bathwater. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 20:47:42 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 13:47:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] overlooking In-Reply-To: <005801d656c7$6083a850$218af8f0$@rainier66.com> References: <005801d656c7$6083a850$218af8f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <20DE7F26-C0D0-4DB8-950F-CB66025ECA19@gmail.com> On Jul 10, 2020, at 7:37 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > Subject: [ExI] overlooking > > To me it's not overlooking in how we judge our Founders. It is accepting the bad with the good. > > Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. > > Cliche' but true. > > bill w > > > Ja. Otherwise the farther back in time you go, the worse they get. Our perception of right and wrong changes over time for perfectly understandable reasons: we get to see how things turned out. The old timers were guessing at how things would turn out. We read about it. The old ones didn?t even have internet. > > The founding fathers recognized that the continent could not sustain a prolonged armed struggle between states, or a system whereby every state was a completely independent nation (which is why they didn?t allow the Green Mountain Boys to form Vermont into its own country or the Kanawhans to form an independent nation.) The founders had to accept compromises in order to get the states to work together. > > spike Hasn't the whole argument that times were different been overused? Again, I've pointed out that there were antislavery movements in the Colonies and in Britain around before the US formed. So, some of the Founders were behind the times here. Heck, even some of these abolitionists were contemporary critics of the Founders or were Founders themselves. So, it's not like the Founders were unaware of antislavery ideas and had to slowly invent the idea themselves. I think there's also an overstatement of the Founders as innovative thinkers. I would say none of them had an original thought, but their basic political philosophy arose out of the wider liberal movement in Britain and Europe. And here they were mostly borrowers from thinkers like Locke, Sydney, Montesquieu, and Rousseau (though the last is an odd bird here) sometimes via seconds source like Cato's Letters. This isn't to fault them. Being original in political philosophy is rare and difficult. With compromises in history, sure, it's easy to overlook the messiness and how maybe folks were making the best of a bad situation. But one must be careful not to excuse everything. There's a tendency in many national histories -- and US national history is no exception -- to read many historical compromises, especially ones the Framers made, as excusable or even laudable. But I think this goes way too far. Other Founders criticized the Framers and the Framers' specific compromises. It might be difficult to see what might have been, but let's say the freed colonies split over slavery were decisive. What then? Two separate confederations or many separate states? What would've been the horror of that? The usual thing I've heard is each state would've been picked off by a major power like Britain or France. Maybe, but maybe not. Major European powers seemed to have other concerns, especially after the French Revolution. And from the perspective of slavery, one view is that it would've ended sooner. Slave states wouldn't have a federal government to back their claims over runaways. An Underground Railroad under such conditions would probably terminate right across the northern border of the Mason-Dixon line rather than in Canada, making running much easier and making slavery far less economical, especially close to the border. Freedom of slaves, to me, seems like a better goal than national union for national union's sake. Vermont was an independent republic until 1791. And it abolished slavery during that time. Its joining the US had to do more with not wanting to be surrounded by US territory yet outside it and having land disputes with US states that it wanted settled. West Virginia, to my knowledge, wanted to be a separate state inside the US -- not a separate nation state with full national sovereignty. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 10 20:53:47 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 13:53:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: <001201d656ea$f03d3f10$d0b7bd30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00c501d656fc$353fa880$9fbef980$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Friday, July 10, 2020 1:10 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] hero worship Spike - did you see S.O.B.? I too have wondered about the adulation of movie stars. Looked at in a different light, they are people who make their living by pretending to be someone else? The adulation itself has a negative impact on the ones being elevated. Case in point, one that I followed: the chess champion Bobby Fischer. If you are in that crowd they treated him as a god, if not even the capital G, almost. But only the chess crowd. Outside that crowd, plenty of people wondered if he was retarded. We now consider it likely he was Aspergers, but one of those who had the option to close himself off into his own world where people would treat him like a god rather than the real world where people would consider him a total reject, probably kick his ass. He quite high school and studied chess full time. No one really gave him much bother about it: he won the US championship at age 14. In an area where they treat chess at least as seriously as any other sport, no one was going to demand he study algebra. Result: he practically lived at one of the strongest clubs in the US, if not the strongest, where people treated him as you would expect. That caused him to not need to develop normal social skills, and he didn?t. He had a special gift, he hung around those who cared about that only, then he could be anything he wanted. So, he did. Fischer is a good example but scarcely unique: many sports heroes and entertainers have a clear gift from childhood and are treated as special cases. That causes them to not need to adjust themselves to the real world. We do, they don?t. Result: their opinions on real-world things not only are not superior to the masses, they are generally inferior. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 10 21:36:13 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 14:36:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] overlooking In-Reply-To: <20DE7F26-C0D0-4DB8-950F-CB66025ECA19@gmail.com> References: <005801d656c7$6083a850$218af8f0$@rainier66.com> <20DE7F26-C0D0-4DB8-950F-CB66025ECA19@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00ff01d65702$23109a10$6931ce30$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Sent: Friday, July 10, 2020 1:48 PM >?Hasn't the whole argument that times were different been overused? Again, I've pointed out that there were antislavery movements in the Colonies and in Britain around before the US formed. ?Regards, Dan Hi Dan, Do you know what we are doing wrong today? Things will be very different 100 yrs from now. Think about what are we doing now which will then might be considered so heinous that anyone in cryonic suspension who defended this practice will have her head removed from the dewar and hurled contemptuously into the trash incinerator. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 22:09:35 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:09:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: <00c501d656fc$353fa880$9fbef980$@rainier66.com> References: <001201d656ea$f03d3f10$d0b7bd30$@rainier66.com> <00c501d656fc$353fa880$9fbef980$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Along the same line: the local newspaper has, every single day, a big write-up on the sports pages (and even a hint of it at the top of the first page) of a high school player, invariably Black. Sometimes a college player. I have wondered what incredible attention like this does to a youngster? If good, then he works harder and harder to justify his prominence. If bad, he begins to act entitled. I have no data, so I can't say what usually happens. But certainly all of them become big men in the neighborhood; some will make under the table deals with shady sports agents and often get caught. Some of them may be potential Rhodes scholars for all I know. I suspect not. So we should have a new saying, in light of what we know about brain development, moral development and the sort of world youngsters go through: don't trust anyone under 25. bill w bill w On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 4:07 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Friday, July 10, 2020 1:10 PM > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] hero worship > > > > Spike - did you see S.O.B.? > > > > I too have wondered about the adulation of movie stars. Looked at in a > different light, they are people who make their living by pretending to be > someone else? > > > > The adulation itself has a negative impact on the ones being elevated. > > > > Case in point, one that I followed: the chess champion Bobby Fischer. If > you are in that crowd they treated him as a god, if not even the capital G, > almost. But only the chess crowd. Outside that crowd, plenty of people > wondered if he was retarded. We now consider it likely he was Aspergers, > but one of those who had the option to close himself off into his own world > where people would treat him like a god rather than the real world where > people would consider him a total reject, probably kick his ass. > > > > He quite high school and studied chess full time. No one really gave him > much bother about it: he won the US championship at age 14. In an area > where they treat chess at least as seriously as any other sport, no one was > going to demand he study algebra. Result: he practically lived at one of > the strongest clubs in the US, if not the strongest, where people treated > him as you would expect. That caused him to not need to develop normal > social skills, and he didn?t. He had a special gift, he hung around those > who cared about that only, then he could be anything he wanted. So, he did. > > > > Fischer is a good example but scarcely unique: many sports heroes and > entertainers have a clear gift from childhood and are treated as special > cases. That causes them to not need to adjust themselves to the real > world. We do, they don?t. Result: their opinions on real-world things not > only are not superior to the masses, they are generally inferior. > > > > spike > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Fri Jul 10 22:48:23 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 15:48:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx Message-ID: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Nature, long regarded as a top-tier journal in virtually all fields of science, recently published an overtly political article, that as scientist, I have mixed feelings about. They give ecologically-based Malthusian arguments for how it is the consumption of the affluent that drives environmentally unsustainable growth of capitalism and why Marxist-style growth-limiters, income caps, and redistribution of wealth are therefore necessary to stave off environmental collapse. --------------------------------------------------- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y#Sec2 Abstract For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology. The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions. We summarise the evidence and present possible solution approaches. Any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements. However, existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change. ------------------------------------------------- The timing of this article in light of the bizarre pandemic, race riots, and other current events seems supportive of the notion that some world-wide "cultural revolution" is underway. For a journal of Nature's standing and credibility to stake its 151 year long reputation for scientific objectivity and integrity on a naked endorsement of Marxism is unprecedented. I am most upset by the complete disregard for discussing the physical expansion of the economy to encompass space-based resources such as asteroids, SPSS, and off-world colonies. The article seems to insist that there are no alternatives to simply tightening our belts and satisfying ourselves with an ever-shrinking piece of the global pie rationed out to us by bloated yet somehow enlightened (woke?) governments. The article does not, for example, discuss eliminating pensions for members of Congress or the English parliament. I am interested in what other list members think about this. Without allowing for the use of space-based resources, it seems that we are left with the horrible choice of fighting an all out xenophobic resource-war to cull the excess consumers from our population or holding hands and singing Kumbaya while our quality of life slowly deteriorates until we are splitting the last bean 10 billion ways. Why is there no serious scientific support for alternative solutions involving coupling economic growth with physical expansion through space. Always the critics come with excuses like "manned space-flight is unsafe". Well so is fighting World War III for resources. On the other hand, maintaining communist solidarity while quietly starving to death in our so-called "safe space" is not simply risky, it is guaranteed extinction eventually. Stuart LaForge From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 11 04:30:36 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 21:30:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <017a01d6573c$07739d40$165ad7c0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx Nature, long regarded as a top-tier journal in virtually all fields of science, recently published an overtly political article, that as scientist, I have mixed feelings about. ... ------------------------------------------------- >... Why is there no serious scientific support for alternative solutions involving coupling economic growth with physical expansion through space. Always the critics come with excuses like "manned space-flight is unsafe". Well so is fighting World War III for resources. On the other hand, maintaining communist solidarity while quietly starving to death in our so-called "safe space" is not simply risky, it is guaranteed extinction eventually. Stuart LaForge _______________________________________________ It is most disturbing. Our economic models have long assumed long-term growth. At any time, if that growth stops happening for any reason, even those completely beyond our control, the entire system collapses. Those who ran up the debts are blamed. Then there is retribution. We have not the option of Marxism, for we must continue to grow if we continue to borrow against the future. spike From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jul 11 07:08:29 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 08:08:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 10/07/2020 17:38, Keith Henson wrote: > There are lots of examples where people went to war or similar kinds > of social disruption when things were looking bleak. Can you think of > a case where a group of people with a bright future outlook went to > war? The clincher would be if there are cases where impending war was consistently averted by an upward change in people's economic prospects. Just correlating war and economic outlook doesn't establish causation. The theory makes perfect sense, but it isn't proven. -- Ben Zaiboc From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jul 11 07:41:52 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 08:41:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] overlooking In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 10/07/2020 17:38, billw wrote: > I will reprise my opinion of Odysseus here:? I think that he was a > thug and I don't care if the people at the time thought he was a hero. > > Rape, pillage, murder are just not going down with me as acceptable no > matter what.? bill w and: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The point of the phrase is that we want to throw out the bathwater, but keep the baby, not ditch both or keep both. In other words, it's not black & white. Nothing, and nobody is. I think the term 'hero-worship' is not very useful, because it casts the 'hero' in black/white terms. Ditto 'role-model'. I have my own heroes, but I don't worship them. One of them was almost certainly an arrogant bastard who I would have taken an instant dislike to if I met him in real life. He's still one of my 'heroes', for other reasons. The key to all this is eclecticism, I think. Often cast as a bad thing, I have always regarded it as a very good thing. It's perfectiy possible to abhor some of the things your heroes did, while admiring, and wanting to emulate, other things they did. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 13:47:29 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 08:47:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? Message-ID: A man named Horton Smith has had his name taken off a golf trophy because he agreed with the 'no Blacks' provision in professional golf - he was the president of the PGA. 1950s. Consider this: suppose he had not agreed? Suppose that he wanted Blacks on the tour? Do you think he would have kept his position as president? Hah! People were not ready for that by a long shot. So he is being vilified for thinking the way everyone else did. His only 'sin' is that he was president, I suppose. Should we now disparage all the golfers, like Arnold Palmer, who were members at the time? How far will this go? How long? Billions of people were racist back then. Billions of people are racist now. How far will taking names off of trophies get us? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 14:10:51 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 09:10:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0015CAD6-E618-4ED7-B9A2-6FAC99D35D66@gmail.com> I mean, I understand the impetus for these reactions, but my thinking is more: who really considers these to be racist idols? Robert E Lee is one thing. Everyone ties him instantly with the Civil War and Slavery. Columbus is emblematic of the enslavement and abuse of native people. But I had never heard of this ?Horton Smith? guy until I read this email, and basically no one except a golf fanboy will have. So what good does it do to remove his name from something? A better example of obscure people who I think might be ?villifiable? would be ?the father of modern Gynecology?, Mr. Sims. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims SR Ballard > On Jul 11, 2020, at 8:47 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > A man named Horton Smith has had his name taken off a golf trophy because he agreed with the 'no Blacks' provision in professional golf - he was the president of the PGA. 1950s. > > Consider this: suppose he had not agreed? Suppose that he wanted Blacks on the tour? Do you think he would have kept his position as president? Hah! People were not ready for that by a long shot. > > So he is being vilified for thinking the way everyone else did. His only 'sin' is that he was president, I suppose. Should we now disparage all the golfers, like Arnold Palmer, who were members at the time? > > How far will this go? How long? Billions of people were racist back then. > > Billions of people are racist now. How far will taking names off of trophies get us? > > bill w > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 14:31:48 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 10:31:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: <0015CAD6-E618-4ED7-B9A2-6FAC99D35D66@gmail.com> References: <0015CAD6-E618-4ED7-B9A2-6FAC99D35D66@gmail.com> Message-ID: The first phase of a Marxist revolution is erasing history writ large and small, with struggle sessions in store for anyone who disagrees. There's a method to this madness. On Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 10:11 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I mean, I understand the impetus for these reactions, but my thinking is > more: who really considers these to be racist idols? > > Robert E Lee is one thing. Everyone ties him instantly with the Civil War > and Slavery. Columbus is emblematic of the enslavement and abuse of native > people. > > But I had never heard of this ?Horton Smith? guy until I read this email, > and basically no one except a golf fanboy will have. So what good does it > do to remove his name from something? > > A better example of obscure people who I think might be ?villifiable? > would be ?the father of modern Gynecology?, Mr. Sims. > > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 11, 2020, at 8:47 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > A man named Horton Smith has had his name taken off a golf trophy because > he agreed with the 'no Blacks' provision in professional golf - he was the > president of the PGA. 1950s. > > Consider this: suppose he had not agreed? Suppose that he wanted Blacks > on the tour? Do you think he would have kept his position as president? > Hah! People were not ready for that by a long shot. > > So he is being vilified for thinking the way everyone else did. His only > 'sin' is that he was president, I suppose. Should we now disparage all the > golfers, like Arnold Palmer, who were members at the time? > > How far will this go? How long? Billions of people were racist back > then. > > Billions of people are racist now. How far will taking names off of > trophies get us? > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 14:32:06 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 07:32:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] overlooking In-Reply-To: <00ff01d65702$23109a10$6931ce30$@rainier66.com> References: <00ff01d65702$23109a10$6931ce30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <9673EEAC-DB24-46C5-AF8A-847749E178A8@gmail.com> On Friday, July 10, 2020, 02:43:47 PM PDT, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Sent: Friday, July 10, 2020 1:48 PM >> ?Hasn't the whole argument that times were different been overused? >> Again, I've pointed out that there were antislavery movements in the >> Colonies and in Britain around before the US formed. ?Regards, Dan > > Hi Dan, > > Do you know what we are doing wrong today? Things will be very different > 100 yrs from now. Think about what are we doing now which will then might > be considered so heinous that anyone in cryonic suspension who defended > this practice will have her head removed from the dewar and hurled > contemptuously into the trash incinerator. Show Quoted Content >> ?Hasn't the whole argument that times were different been overused? >> Again, I've pointed out that there were antislavery movements in the >> Colonies and in Britain around before the US formed. ?Regards, Dan > > Hi Dan, > > Do you know what we are doing wrong today? Things will be very different > 100 yrs from now. Think about what are we doing now which will then might > be considered so heinous that anyone in cryonic suspension who defended > this practice will have her head removed from the dewar and hurled > contemptuously into the trash incinerator. A few things are problematic with your approach. 1) You are making an appeal to negative consequences (in Latin, an argumentum ad consequentiam) here... One shouldn't judge X as bad because you yourself might be judged by someone else as bad, so this means X isn't bad. You do see how the logic doesn't work here, I trust. Also, not judging doesn't get you off the hook from others judging you, now or in the future. 2) No one is talking about killing Jefferson, Washington, or any other Founder, so there's that. It's about evaluating them in terms of freedom -- in fact, the freedom many of them so earnestly talked about. 3) One can look at the standards of their times. That was part of my point: not only were their abolitionists before and when the Founders were around, Jefferson and some of the Founders themselves voiced anti-slavery opinions. And slavery was outlawed in several of the states during his and their lifetimes. So your comment might work better if, say, Jefferson were an Ancient Greek around the time of Pericles when almost no one spoke out against slavery and slavery was pretty much the norm in any society they knew of. Ramifying this point: Someone here said they were ahead of the curve. In fact, they weren't. In Jefferson's case, it's worse because he was anti-slavery and then seems to have found that birthing slaves was quite profitable so he shut up about the evils of slavery. (And, once more, tailoring one's views to avoid losing material wealth is not some new vice only pointed out in 2020 CE. It's something Jefferson and his contemporaries would've seen as a vice of hypocrisy, which is something that was recognized as far back as Ancient Times. And there wasn't a hiatus during the 18th century with it not being seen as a vice.) 4) James Wood (the literary critic -- not the actor James Woods) wrote about the problem of judging people in their historical context in his essay "Sir Thomas More: A Man For One Season." A salient point is that people don't get credit for merely going along with the standards of their times (as if any time has one standard to start with). They get credit when they're better than their times. (Wood sees Sir Thomas More as not merely only as good as his time, but in fact worse than the standards of his time.) This segues into a problem with historical relativism taken here: if you're going to forgive misdeeds and faults based on it, then why praise that person for any good qualities or achievements? After all, they're just a product of their times, which had different standards. This is a seriously problem with taking historical relativism too far. (And how far to take it? Well, to me, Jefferson isn't so distant from our time and even held fairly current views, even being anti-slavery before 1792. It seems, again, Jefferson would be hoisted on his own -- not just a modern libertarian's -- petard, no?) 5) Which brings up another issue. If one is looking at historical context as explaining away certain (or all?) faults of heroes, why stop there? Why not all other sorts of relativism? Why do have a problem with, say, riots and vandalism? After all, maybe the rioters and vandals, given their context, believe by their moral standards, that their activities are correct. Yet you have no problem here judging them, right? Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 14:37:30 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 07:37:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] hero worship In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6DBB3316-6FC5-4FAF-B767-429A16EDACD5@gmail.com> There are a few things to unpack here. First though not necessarily most important is I mentioned 'national heroes,' which are not needed, IMO, so much in general as to inspire people to feel in nationalistic ways. And those ways are often quite bad, if history is any guide. National heroes often arise and are supported by national elites to check internal and external threats to their dominance. Of course, they then take on a life of their own. That brings me to the second point. I do recognize most people either need or think they need a hero. And the national hero tends to plug into that need (or supposed need). That's why it's effective at all; why its stuck around. I'm not sure I see whitewashed heroes as reasonable -- save in the praxeological sense that they serve a purpose like any human action. (In that sense, the person doing a rain dance is rational: she believes it really will rain and that's why she's doing said dance. But, as we know, rain dances don't cause rain, FWIW.) Regarding how people take these national heroes, there are two problems. One is that if anyone points to the facts or has a more balanced perspective on said hero, then there's often a strong negative reaction to that person. This is what is seen here, no? This can be a serious problem when the national hero has some truly reprehensible traits that others see, but not the hero worshiper or admirer. And it's not like the admirer is saying, 'Yeah, my hero has some bad aspects, but I only like the good stuff. I'm not going to emulate the bad.' Instead, there's almost always an attempt to diss the person criticizing the hero (which you've seen here, no?) or to minimize the faults. The faults can be seen as extremely serious too. Holding slaves while extolling the equality and liberty of all people is not like a minor infraction. It certainly wasn't one for the slaves so held. Two is that some folks do think it all is good. I've seen alt-right types defend slavery based on race because the Founders did it. That's thankfully rare, but it does happen. This goes to the Lost Cause folks. Surely some of them are just ignorant and actually buy that the Antebellum South wasn't so bad and the big issue was self-determination or free trade or just State's Rights. But the folks who initially promoted the Lost Cause argument -- the UDC and its ilk -- were White Supremacists. They promoted this rather than out and out White Supremacy likely because they knew the soft sell would work better. If that were their intent, it worked well because many take the Lost Cause argument seriously and it's the go to argument on the Right in the US. I'm (somewhat) aware of similar things in Japan and other nations. This isn't something the US has a monopoly on. No doubt, it's probably easier for one to look at a foreign nation and see the problems with excusing war criminals and tyrants when they're not co-nationals. (Actually, though, I've seen folks on the Right defend foreign national heroes provided they were good nationalists too. I've even seen paleo-conservatives defend Ivan the Terrible, to pick just one example.) Finally, I'd also agree that it doesn't come from a bad place -- the want of heroes -- but let's not say it can't thus have bad results. Worshipping the Founders, for instance, is often used to simply support whatever policy one wants to promote. With Jefferson, for instance, I've seen liberals and conservatives both use him to support their views. Sometimes this is fairly bad because the thing being promoted is not clear thinking about policies, but simply looking to see if some great man endorsed it. That's actually not the approach to policy I want to reinforce or keep entrenched. And, yes, I know it's a long and hard road to try to work against that. But it's kind of like emancipation or enlightenment in general: it might take a long time and be hard to achieve, but it's worth it, IMO. (Don't get me wrong. I don't think of myself as some heroic figure here struggling against the darkness. I'm just saying my piece here. I'm hardly at the barricades or in the trenches.) Regards, Dan On Thursday, July 9, 2020, 08:19:40 PM PDT, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: I actually do support hero worship. I understand the impetus, and at a certain level, the need, for hero worship. Humans engage in hero worship because it creates for them a perfect role model to look up to, someone with only good qualities, whom they strive to emulate. Humans naturally and subconsciously model behavior. If someone only has poor behavior modeled for them and they choose to consciously model after their own ?white-washed?, idealized hero-figure, I see that as reasonable. I doubt that the majority of people who engage in hero worship are seeking to emulate the real life negative traits of their hero ? they?re trying to emulate their perfect fantasy figure. And usually, I don?t think that?s a bad thing. The vast majority of people I have met who were Robert E Lee fanboys didn?t think of him as a slave owner or as defending slavery. They?re the type who doesn?t see the Civil War as about slavery. They view the ?Lost Cause? as a people claiming their sovereignty, but as the US claimed theirs from England. As defending the right to self-determinantion. As defending and protecting the culture and atmosphere of the South. One can find a similar and surprising trend in Japan. You can find memorials to those who died defending the old government, and those who died establishing the new government within a stone?s throw of each other. There are many who are honored not for fighting ?against? progress, but rather for putting honor and loyalty above their own lives. Hero worship of ?bad? people doesn?t usually come from a bad place, I think. SR Ballard On Jul 9, 2020, at 7:50 PM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > On Jul 9, 2020, at 8:32 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> Some of you are just small people: mean, petty, picky. You know who you are. ? bill w > > That?s me. In my view, it's better to be seen as 'mean, petty, picky' (by one person here) than to overlook the serious flaws of leaders and national heroes. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 14:41:39 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 09:41:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: References: <0015CAD6-E618-4ED7-B9A2-6FAC99D35D66@gmail.com> Message-ID: <498AAF21-92D1-4288-8DD1-AA0E21A6C4F4@gmail.com> Suggestions? SR > On Jul 11, 2020, at 9:31 AM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > > The first phase of a Marxist revolution is erasing history writ large and small, with struggle sessions in store for anyone who disagrees. > > There's a method to this madness. > >> On Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 10:11 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> I mean, I understand the impetus for these reactions, but my thinking is more: who really considers these to be racist idols? >> >> Robert E Lee is one thing. Everyone ties him instantly with the Civil War and Slavery. Columbus is emblematic of the enslavement and abuse of native people. >> >> But I had never heard of this ?Horton Smith? guy until I read this email, and basically no one except a golf fanboy will have. So what good does it do to remove his name from something? >> >> A better example of obscure people who I think might be ?villifiable? would be ?the father of modern Gynecology?, Mr. Sims. >> >> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 11, 2020, at 8:47 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> A man named Horton Smith has had his name taken off a golf trophy because he agreed with the 'no Blacks' provision in professional golf - he was the president of the PGA. 1950s. >>> >>> Consider this: suppose he had not agreed? Suppose that he wanted Blacks on the tour? Do you think he would have kept his position as president? Hah! People were not ready for that by a long shot. >>> >>> So he is being vilified for thinking the way everyone else did. His only 'sin' is that he was president, I suppose. Should we now disparage all the golfers, like Arnold Palmer, who were members at the time? >>> >>> How far will this go? How long? Billions of people were racist back then. >>> >>> Billions of people are racist now. How far will taking names off of trophies get us? >>> >>> 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 14:46:57 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 07:46:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jul 11, 2020, at 7:33 AM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > The first phase of a Marxist revolution is erasing history writ large and small, with struggle sessions in store for anyone who disagrees. > > There's a method to this madness. You really see this as a Marxist revolution? I see it as a protest movement. Mike many previous protest movements, it has many facets and it?s a bit chaotic. There are definitely, in my mind, many legitimate grievances and likely some excesses. Aside from statue removal and flag changes, though, almost nothing else seems to be happening. Yes, a few cities are going to ?defund? police, but they are few. History isn?t being erased ? as if the statues taught people history or if that many people even cared about history in the first place. (Most people seem to care about preserving national myths anyhow.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 15:08:34 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 16:08:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 at 23:51, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > > > Nature, long regarded as a top-tier journal in virtually all fields of > science, recently published an overtly political article, that as > scientist, I have mixed feelings about. They give ecologically-based > Malthusian arguments for how it is the consumption of the affluent > that drives environmentally unsustainable growth of capitalism and why > Marxist-style growth-limiters, income caps, and redistribution of > wealth are therefore necessary to stave off environmental collapse. > --------------------------------------------------- > > Why is there no serious scientific support for alternative solutions > involving coupling economic growth with physical expansion through > space. Always the critics come with excuses like "manned space-flight > is unsafe". Well so is fighting World War III for resources. On the > other hand, maintaining communist solidarity while quietly starving to > death in our so-called "safe space" is not simply risky, it is > guaranteed extinction eventually. > > Stuart LaForge > _______________________________________________ The comments on that Nature article quickly degenerate into an argument about climate change. Two groups shouting 'Yes it is!' versus 'No it isn't!'. By the way, have you noticed that Siberia is no longer frozen? It is literally on fire. I frame the situation as fundamentally a resource problem. Cheap (but polluting) coal and oil produced a dramatic expansion of wealth and production. It was great at first, but as the whole world turned to using coal and oil, the unexpected cumulative pollution means that usage now has to stop. Currently there is no equivalent cheap resource alternative. And it has to be one that doesn't add to the existing pollution. There are temporary fixes available, like wind and solar power, that might buy us a bit of time. Humanity needs to find a new non-polluting energy resource that doesn't require more energy to create than usable energy it provides. There will be much disruption as energy resources gradually run out and only the wealthy can afford access to energy while dumping the resultant pollution elsewhere. But now 'elsewhere' appears to be coming a bit too close to home. Space ventures are a possibility, but it is beginning to look like we are running out of time. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 15:28:12 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 10:28:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: <0015CAD6-E618-4ED7-B9A2-6FAC99D35D66@gmail.com> References: <0015CAD6-E618-4ED7-B9A2-6FAC99D35D66@gmail.com> Message-ID: Here's a thing: how many PGA golfers were racist? Probably nearly all of them. Who would have done what Columbus did? Nearly all of them. After all, he was not taken down by his crew, who presumably would have keelhauled him if he had done anything outrageous. We are punishing the images of people who were conforming to the principles of the time. How evil is that? bill w On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 9:12 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I mean, I understand the impetus for these reactions, but my thinking is > more: who really considers these to be racist idols? > > Robert E Lee is one thing. Everyone ties him instantly with the Civil War > and Slavery. Columbus is emblematic of the enslavement and abuse of native > people. > > But I had never heard of this ?Horton Smith? guy until I read this email, > and basically no one except a golf fanboy will have. So what good does it > do to remove his name from something? > > A better example of obscure people who I think might be ?villifiable? > would be ?the father of modern Gynecology?, Mr. Sims. > > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 11, 2020, at 8:47 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > A man named Horton Smith has had his name taken off a golf trophy because > he agreed with the 'no Blacks' provision in professional golf - he was the > president of the PGA. 1950s. > > Consider this: suppose he had not agreed? Suppose that he wanted Blacks > on the tour? Do you think he would have kept his position as president? > Hah! People were not ready for that by a long shot. > > So he is being vilified for thinking the way everyone else did. His only > 'sin' is that he was president, I suppose. Should we now disparage all the > golfers, like Arnold Palmer, who were members at the time? > > How far will this go? How long? Billions of people were racist back > then. > > Billions of people are racist now. How far will taking names off of > trophies get us? > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 15:39:01 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 10:39:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] good words Message-ID: Here are some good words for what is going on, both in this group (not most of you), and society: niggling scrupulosity. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 15:45:07 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 11:45:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I seriously wish I could answer you without making this political, but yes, I believe if Biden is elected, and the Ds have control of Congress, things may spin out of control very quickly. I don't believe mainstream pols like Pelosi have any interest in anything beyond their own power. I think they see what's happening as a useful tool, but I also think they're underestimating the odds of it getting away from them. I think the odds of this revolution occurring are still relatively low at this point. That said, yes, I do believe that is the platform that has been inculcated in academia via critical theory and intersectionality that BLM and others are attempting to implement here. The fact that the hateful pablum known as White Fragility is being held up as important reading throughout many parts of the school system, and that people painting over a BLM street mural have been charged with a hate crime are additional canaries. There are many others, so yes, I don't believe this is really about protesting police brutality. I also agree there are some legitimate grievances lost in this mess. On Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 11:01 AM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jul 11, 2020, at 7:33 AM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > The first phase of a Marxist revolution is erasing history writ large and > small, with struggle sessions in store for anyone who disagrees. > > There's a method to this madness. > > > You really see this as a Marxist revolution? I see it as a protest > movement. Mike many previous protest movements, it has many facets and it?s > a bit chaotic. There are definitely, in my mind, many legitimate grievances > and likely some excesses. > > Aside from statue removal and flag changes, though, almost nothing else > seems to be happening. Yes, a few cities are going to ?defund? police, but > they are few. History isn?t being erased ? as if the statues taught people > history or if that many people even cared about history in the first place. > (Most people seem to care about preserving national myths anyhow.) > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 15:48:47 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 11:48:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: References: <0015CAD6-E618-4ED7-B9A2-6FAC99D35D66@gmail.com> Message-ID: Considering the fact that my country is in the worst public health crisis in a century and is being led by a racist gangster who is as dumb as a sack full of hammers the name that is on a golf trophy is not one of my major concerns. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 16:42:01 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 11:42:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Any theory that originates in the English department is the very worst sort of bullshit. bill w On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 10:47 AM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I seriously wish I could answer you without making this political, but > yes, I believe if Biden is elected, and the Ds have control of Congress, > things may spin out of control very quickly. I don't believe mainstream > pols like Pelosi have any interest in anything beyond their own power. I > think they see what's happening as a useful tool, but I also think they're > underestimating the odds of it getting away from them. > > I think the odds of this revolution occurring are still relatively low at > this point. That said, yes, I do believe that is the platform that has > been inculcated in academia via critical theory and intersectionality that > BLM and others are attempting to implement here. > > The fact that the hateful pablum known as White Fragility is being held up > as important reading throughout many parts of the school system, and that > people painting over a BLM street mural have been charged with a hate crime > are additional canaries. > > There are many others, so yes, I don't believe this is really about > protesting police brutality. > > I also agree there are some legitimate grievances lost in this mess. > > On Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 11:01 AM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Jul 11, 2020, at 7:33 AM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> The first phase of a Marxist revolution is erasing history writ large and >> small, with struggle sessions in store for anyone who disagrees. >> >> There's a method to this madness. >> >> >> You really see this as a Marxist revolution? I see it as a protest >> movement. Mike many previous protest movements, it has many facets and it?s >> a bit chaotic. There are definitely, in my mind, many legitimate grievances >> and likely some excesses. >> >> Aside from statue removal and flag changes, though, almost nothing else >> seems to be happening. Yes, a few cities are going to ?defund? police, but >> they are few. History isn?t being erased ? as if the statues taught people >> history or if that many people even cared about history in the first place. >> (Most people seem to care about preserving national myths anyhow.) >> >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 18:26:42 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 11:26:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] how long will this go on? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46DB2A0E-DC56-4E8C-91F9-EDD08AB6DE22@gmail.com> On Jul 11, 2020, at 8:47 AM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote:? > I seriously wish I could answer you without making this political, but yes, I believe if Biden is elected, and the Ds have control of Congress, things may spin out of control very quickly. I don't believe mainstream pols like Pelosi have any interest in anything beyond their own power. I think they see what's happening as a useful tool, but I also think they're underestimating the odds of it getting away from them. > > I think the odds of this revolution occurring are still relatively low at this point. That said, yes, I do believe that is the platform that has been inculcated in academia via critical theory and intersectionality that BLM and others are attempting to implement here. > > The fact that the hateful pablum known as White Fragility is being held up as important reading throughout many parts of the school system, and that people painting over a BLM street mural have been charged with a hate crime are additional canaries. > > There are many others, so yes, I don't believe this is really about protesting police brutality. > > I also agree there are some legitimate grievances lost in this mess. I think the power of almost always academia is overstated, but can you make comparisons to other actual revolutions? Reading history, it seems like 1968 was a far more revolutionary year in the US and Europe. And yet what actually happened? Perhaps the problem is watching events unfold in the here and now and trying to connect dots that might not matter a year or ten from now. What legitimate grievances are being lost in this mess? My actual fear is what happened with Obama and the antiwar movement will repeat with Biden and BLM should Biden get elected. The antiwar movement basically went into (terminal?) decline despite Obama basically continuing Bush?s militarism. (Not that Bush was much of a maverick here: US foreign has always been bellicose. A myth here is the US never meddles outside its borders until it?s dragged into others? affairs.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 19:11:27 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:11:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment Message-ID: Ben Zaiboc wrote: On 10/07/2020 17:38, Keith Henson wrote: <> There are lots of examples where people went to war or similar kinds >> of social disruption when things were looking bleak. Can you think of >> a case where a group of people with a bright future outlook went to >> war? > The clincher would be if there are cases where impending war was consistently averted by an upward change in people's economic prospects. I have often cited the IRA as an example. Income per capita seems to be the modern mapping of a stone age resource crisis. What happened is that over a couple of generations the Irish women reduced the number of kids from around 4 to replacement. With low population growth, economic growth got ahead of population. The improved income per capita made the future look brighter and that seems to have turned down the population support for the IRA until it more or less went out of business. > Just correlating war and economic outlook doesn't establish causation. The theory makes perfect sense, but it isn't proven. I agree. However, there would be serious ethical problems with an experiment to make the future for a population look bleak to see if the people went to war. One of the depressing things about this work is that I can't see it being applied to the high growth places in the world where it is needed the most, the Arab-Islamic world. It might not be impossible though. Iran (Islamic but not Arab) reached replacement some years ago, though because of the former high birth rate, the population will grow for some time. Incidentally, for many years I have predicted the Chinese will not start a war as long as they have economic growth. In the last couple of years that growth has been disrupted. Will they start a war? Will growth pick up? I can propose a model, but there is a lot of uncertainty. It wasn't simple in the stone age and is much more complicated now. Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 19:43:29 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 15:43:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 11:11 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> as the whole world turned to using coal and oil, the unexpected > cumulative pollution means thatusage now has to stop. Currently there is no > equivalent cheap resource alternative.* Actually there is an alternative, nuclear. but there are powerful superstitions against even suggesting such a thing. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 11 19:59:37 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:59:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <016001d657bd$cec71f80$6c555e80$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Malthus and Marx On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 11:11 AM BillK via extropy-chat > wrote: > as the whole world turned to using coal and oil, the unexpected cumulative pollution means that usage now has to stop. Currently there is no equivalent cheap resource alternative. Actually there is an alternative, nuclear. but there are powerful superstitions against even suggesting such a thing. John K Clark Nuclear power is looking more attractive over time. Those of us who do calculations have concluded that in the long run, it must be nuclear. There is no substitute. Recall a discussion in this forum 25 years ago, a thread which was called something like ?Is technology infinite?? That discussion focused on energy generation tech. We have an underlying assumption that technology would always come along, progress would be made, everything will be OK, but even then, we already had a good example of a technology in which astonishing investment had been made and technology didn?t come: nuclear fusion. Today we have tokamacs in operation, but fusion didn?t come. We have had progress in energy generation, but we still rely on coal, natural gas, falling water, wind and solar. Technology improved but a quarter of a century later I will still argue as I did then, that technology advance is not infinite. At some point we really do get to the point we have discovered everything there is to know. The implications of that notion are appalling. In the meantime, nuclear fission will need to carry part of the load. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 20:00:38 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 16:00:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: The fact nuclear is not being used tells me that noone really believes the world is ending from global warming any time soon. Yes, waste disposal is a challenge, but nuclear combined with EVs is probably the best possible near term solution. Of course, building a nuke is also incredibly expensive and politically unpopular for many reasons so there is little incentive in the market to build them as well. When Germany abandoned nukes, I looked at their actions, not their words in terms of where they actually stood on the climate issue. On Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:44 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 11:11 AM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >> *> as the whole world turned to using coal and oil, the unexpected >> cumulative pollution means thatusage now has to stop. Currently there is no >> equivalent cheap resource alternative.* > > > Actually there is an alternative, nuclear. but there are powerful > superstitions against even suggesting such a thing. > > John K Clark > > > >> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jul 12 04:57:08 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 21:57:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx Message-ID: <20200711215708.Horde.zxnGTetij0mWmgUtzw7ZJdy@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting BillK: > The comments on that Nature article quickly degenerate into an argument about > climate change. > Two groups shouting 'Yes it is!' versus 'No it isn't!'. Which has been the normal state of affairs for some two decades now. Yes, climate is changing. It has been changing for billions of years before man evolved and it will continue to do so regardless of what we do or do not do. We don't need to stop it because there is zero evidence that we could even if we wanted to. We instead simply need to figure out how to survive it. > By the way, have you noticed that Siberia is no longer > frozen? It is literally on fire. > Meh. It is still better than time that Siberia became molten lava. Oddly enough, and quite fortuitously for us, the cynodonts from whom all creatures with canine teeth descended survived. http://news.mit.edu/2015/siberian-traps-end-permian-extinction-0916 The point is things change. That is the nature of time. It is hubris to think that we can hold back the unfolding of the future with legislation or even outright revolution. A type I civilization might be able to climate control their planet but we are not there yet. > Currently there is no equivalent cheap resource alternative. > And it has to be one that doesn't add to the existing pollution. > There are temporary fixes available, like wind and solar power, that might > buy us a bit of time. When it comes to nuclear energy, pretending the genie doesn't exist doesn't get the genie back in the bottle. If runaway consumption really is the root of problem, then even the dangers of nuclear energy no longer seem like a downside. After all, just a few decades in, Chernobyl is practically a nature preserve and the only species that thinks nuclear contamination of the environment is a problem is us. Poor humanity caught between its fear of fire and its fear of the dark. If we want to be the cynodonts of the mass extinction that is upon us, then we need to become more risk tolerant as a species. Just as chemical fires helped our ancestors survive the darkness of night, so will nuclear fires help us survive the darkness of space. > Humanity needs to find a new non-polluting energy resource that > doesn't require more energy to create than usable energy it provides. > There will be much disruption as energy resources gradually run out > and only the wealthy can afford access to energy while dumping the > resultant pollution elsewhere. > But now 'elsewhere' appears to be coming a bit too close to home. Is there something wrong with the market pricing mechanisms for relative risks? I echo Dylan's concern that until the perceived risk to the environment posed by fossil fuels exceeds the perceived risk to the environment of nuclear power, then how can we take climate alarmists seriously? > Space ventures are a possibility, but it is beginning to look like we > are running out of time. Space is simply one the most obvious solutions. Come on, we are transhumanists here. We could for example use CRISPR to give some people gills to save room on land. Plus I imagine that being aquatic would lower their carbon footprint, even if they are wealthy. My point is that the solution space to the current Malthusian crisis is much larger than the simple choice between capitalism or communism. Thus it is irritating that climate scientists frame it as such. Money can be green too . . . at least ours is. ;-) Stuart LaForge From giulio at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 06:46:49 2020 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 08:46:49 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Ultra-advanced natural Gods: Stanley Kubrick Message-ID: Ultra-advanced natural Gods: Stanley Kubrick Kubrick outlined a concept of God inspired by science: Ultra-advanced natural beings that would be incomprehensible to us except as Gods.... https://turingchurch.net/ultra-advanced-natural-gods-stanley-kubrick-affd8044a2c7 From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 13:13:00 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 09:13:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 4:07 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> The fact nuclear is not being used tells me that noone really believes > the world is ending from global warming any time soon. * > It tells me environmentalists are not serious people. I agree that climate change is a problem, but environmentalists go further and claim it is an existential problem; however in spite of this perceived threat, as grave a threat as a threat can be, environmentalists have never met a solution that they didn't hate, they have never heard of an alternate energy source that might actually be sufficiently large to keep 7.7 billion large mammals alive and reasonably happy that they endorse. They think hydroelectric floods too much land and they want existing dams to be dismantled. Desert solar collecting farms take up too much land, harm wildlife living there and need unsightly high voltage lines that they claim (without evidence) cause health problems. Windmills disrupt natural wind patterns, kill birds, and are ugly and noisy. Tidal power could harm gray seals and "*Electro-magnetic emissions might also disrupt the sensitive marine life*". Geothermal generators cause earthquakes. And of course there is the power source whose name must not be spoken, the one that starts with an N. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 12 19:35:15 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 12:35:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow Message-ID: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> The Boy Scouts of America are now being criticized for cultural appropriation for our century-old Scouting honor society known as Order of the Arrow. Apparently Native Americans somehow own flint arrows as cultural private property. In a twist of irony, those demanding American Boy Scouts remove all references to arrows and feathers allow both for scouts outside the USA, which did not have Native Americans. OK, so we are told, even though humans used flint arrows everywhere flint could be found until fairly recently, Native Americans own that ancient technology with a patent which never expires, for they were still using that technology long after the rest of the world moved on, and still do in a sense: there are natives who make flint arrow points to sell to tourists to this day. Question please: if it is cultural appropriation (the newest form of bad behavior) to do anything with Native American anything, to imitate minority fashions, to emulate certain cultural oddities such as rap and hip hop, can someone please explain to me how it isn?t cultural appropriation to learn a foreign language? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 20:09:49 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 15:09:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> References: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: This is simply the latest thing that people with any moral conscience and common sense have to ignore. Yes, it's outrageous and stupid - most of all, silly. Next we will have criticism of white people getting a tan, which has to mean, and it cannot mean anything else, trying to be Black. "This too will pass." bill w On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 2:37 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > The Boy Scouts of America are now being criticized for cultural > appropriation for our century-old Scouting honor society known as Order of > the Arrow. Apparently Native Americans somehow own flint arrows as > cultural private property. In a twist of irony, those demanding American > Boy Scouts remove all references to arrows and feathers allow both for > scouts outside the USA, which did not have Native Americans. > > > > OK, so we are told, even though humans used flint arrows everywhere flint > could be found until fairly recently, Native Americans own that ancient > technology with a patent which never expires, for they were still using > that technology long after the rest of the world moved on, and still do in > a sense: there are natives who make flint arrow points to sell to tourists > to this day. > > > > Question please: if it is cultural appropriation (the newest form of bad > behavior) to do anything with Native American anything, to imitate minority > fashions, to emulate certain cultural oddities such as rap and hip hop, can > someone please explain to me how it isn?t cultural appropriation to learn a > foreign language? > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 20:20:05 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:20:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: References: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 4:10 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > "This too will pass." > > I really hope your optimism is warranted on this issue! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jul 12 21:02:28 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 22:02:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Famous Scientists saying Racist Things. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8df0edad-8aee-62ac-1e2a-0b887b4f78f5@zaiboc.net> On 04/07/2020 18:38, SR Ballard wrote: > > Should a scientist?s personal views matter in regards to recognition > of their scientific achievement? Think of it another way: Should a scientist?s sexuality matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement? Or: Should a scientist?s ethnicity matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement? Or: Should a scientist?s hobbies matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement? Or: Should a scientist?s hair colour matter in regards to recognition of their scientific achievement? If someone has contributed to the advancement of human knowledge, their sexuality, hair colour, hobbies, ethnicity or personal views (etc., etc., etc.) in no way detract from that fact. The same principle applies to any other positive contribution than anyone makes to the human condition in general. Praise the good things that people have done, condemn the bad things they have done. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's simple, really. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jul 12 21:09:28 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 22:09:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] you'll never see this again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 04/07/2020 18:38, John K Clark/Spike wrote: > > >///Our drug qualification trials are more expensive than other > countries,/ > > > If true, which I doubt, it just means the US is wasting that drug > testing money pushing paper and not on helping?patients live longer > because?they most certainly do NOT live longer?compared?with other > countries?that spend less than a third as much on healthcare as the > USA does. > I really don't understand arguments like this. Is there any doubt that in the USA, healthcare is a cash cow? The rest follows naturally and inevitably. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jul 12 21:22:33 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 22:22:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] lag time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e276ffe-35e1-9bd1-b7ba-bc6d4b36f103@zaiboc.net> On 04/07/2020 18:38, Henry Rivera wrote: > > The kids who desperately need the social interaction are ones who tend > to only get social interaction at school and within their homes. They > don?t ?socialize? online much like their peers, and they don?t seek > out social opportunities. Forced socializing at school by virtue of > participating in work groups, lunch, and answering their teachers ?is > their only practical hope for this crucial part of their development. > These kids even not in a pandemic would not be socializing with others > if they could help it, and in a pandemic it?s all to easy for them to > avoid and stay isolated with little opportunity for any alternative. > Many have regressed socially at this time I imagine. Video learning > for them may be an option for academic competencies, but it isn?t > addressing their social development needs. Whoa, hang on there. You seem to be assuming that everyone needs the same social interaction in order to be healthy and happy. I can assure you, that isn't the case. Why do some people only get significant social interaction when they are forced to? Usually because they don't want it (and in some cases, can't bear it). Socialising is not a crucial part of everyone's development. For some people, social interaction is a negative experience, and forcing it won't make that any less true, and definitely won't make them any happier or healthier. I speak from experience. Treating everyone the same, on the assumption that they are all the same is never a good idea. -- Ben Zaiboc From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 21:29:19 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 17:29:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> References: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 3:37 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > The Boy Scouts of America are now being criticized for cultural > appropriation for our century-old Scouting honor society known as Order of > the Arrow. Apparently Native Americans somehow own flint arrows as > cultural private property. > You can't win. If you embrace a culture that is not your own then you're evil because you've culturally appropriated it. If you *don't* embrace a culture that is not your own then you're evil because you're ignoring another culture that has made important contributions to human civilization. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jul 12 22:01:31 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 23:01:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <74498bea-b414-2c2c-8358-23f6d2eea762@zaiboc.net> On 12/07/2020 22:30, Spike wrote: > Question please: if it is cultural appropriation (the newest form of > bad behavior) to do anything with Native American anything, to imitate > minority fashions, to emulate certain cultural oddities such as rap > and hip hop, can someone please explain to me how it isn?t cultural > appropriation to learn a foreign language? Au contraire, it /is/ 'cultural appropriation' to learn a foreign language. How could it not be? I'd suggest that the people who harp on about this new sin, stop wearing trousers immediately, and apologise for their trouser-wearing in the most abject fashion, but, well, why feed the trolls? The whole concept is ludicrous. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 22:19:33 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 17:19:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] lag time In-Reply-To: <3e276ffe-35e1-9bd1-b7ba-bc6d4b36f103@zaiboc.net> References: <3e276ffe-35e1-9bd1-b7ba-bc6d4b36f103@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: ben wrote; Socialising is not a crucial part of everyone's development. Of course I have to disagree with this. A kid who is home-schooled and has no interaction with his peers otherwise is going to be a social moron. However, suppose the Fall and Spring terms, 2020-2021, is canceled. That is far too short a time for any significant disability to happen. It would take years. bill w On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 4:24 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 04/07/2020 18:38, Henry Rivera wrote: > > > > The kids who desperately need the social interaction are ones who tend > > to only get social interaction at school and within their homes. They > > don?t ?socialize? online much like their peers, and they don?t seek > > out social opportunities. Forced socializing at school by virtue of > > participating in work groups, lunch, and answering their teachers is > > their only practical hope for this crucial part of their development. > > These kids even not in a pandemic would not be socializing with others > > if they could help it, and in a pandemic it?s all to easy for them to > > avoid and stay isolated with little opportunity for any alternative. > > Many have regressed socially at this time I imagine. Video learning > > for them may be an option for academic competencies, but it isn?t > > addressing their social development needs. > > Whoa, hang on there. You seem to be assuming that everyone needs the > same social interaction in order to be healthy and happy. I can assure > you, that isn't the case. Why do some people only get significant social > interaction when they are forced to? Usually because they don't want it > (and in some cases, can't bear it). Socialising is not a crucial part of > everyone's development. For some people, social interaction is a > negative experience, and forcing it won't make that any less true, and > definitely won't make them any happier or healthier. I speak from > experience. Treating everyone the same, on the assumption that they are > all the same is never a good idea. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 22:42:35 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 15:42:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx Message-ID: wrote: snip > Nuclear power is looking more attractive over time. Those of us who do calculations have concluded that in the long run, it must be nuclear. There is no substitute. Come on, Spike, if you can get the cost of lifting parts power satellite parts down to ~$100/kg, they come in at about half the cost per kWh of fission plants. If you have a reasonably efficient method to make synthetic oil, PV power in the mid east can make fuel for about what we pay for it now. I am not down on fission power, far from it. But there are political problems and there are other sources of energy that cost the same or less. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 12 23:40:38 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:40:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: References: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <012101d658a5$d988fd10$8c9af730$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] order of the arrow On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 3:37 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >>? The Boy Scouts of America are now being criticized for cultural appropriation for our century-old Scouting honor society known as Order of the Arrow. Apparently Native Americans somehow own flint arrows as cultural private property. >?You can't win. If you embrace a culture that is not your own then you're evil because you've culturally appropriated it. If you don't embrace a culture that is not your own then you're evil because you're ignoring another culture that has made important contributions to human civilization. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. John K Clark John, we have been there before. We are there now with the scouts. Since this is about cultural appropriation, motive and attitude counts. Consider good people who have done things that would now be considered major no-nos, such as Jerry Lewis. He did unflattering caricatures of Japanese goofballs, but consider that the USA was fresh from a horrifying war with Japan. I would overlook it, particularly considering that Lewis dedicated his life to raising funds for scientific research for muscular dystrophy. He was a big player in the Muscular Dystrophy Association for fiiiiiifty fiiiive yeeeears. Lewis was the kind of guy who could get on the phone with his Hollywood buddies, talk them into coming out and donating a song and dance, tell a few jokes, people would call in pledges and donate to the research. In my view, if Jerry Lewis did anything wrong in his life, his philanthropy washes it cleaner than clean. In Boy Scouts, the Native American is revered, because they knew how to live off the land and survive harsh conditions, born experts in the skills we teach the scouts (in the scout version of the American Native they knew these things (and they had the whole father to son passing of wisdom thing going bigtime.)) We have ?Indian? ceremonies, sure we do. Of course we exaggerate the noble and ignore the savage aspects of native culture. Ja, so is that a crime? Of course we understand that our version of an ?Indian? ceremony is really based on the intentionally-distorted and Euro-centric writings of Zane Gray and Rudyard Kipling. We know none of these legends are historically accurate and we know none of them are based on actual Native American views or actual ancient Indian culture. We get that. I don?t consider it cultural appropriation to have an Order of the Arrow, or any of the other stuff we do. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 23:50:25 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:50:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> References: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <0721DAF3-0888-407A-9BE0-E8E6736A1F22@gmail.com> Is there an actual news story backing this thread? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 00:02:48 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 17:02:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Jokes spawn conspiracy theories about antifa Message-ID: https://reason.com/2020/07/12/from-antifa-to-ufos-one-joke-can-spawn-a-thousand-conspiracies/ Jesse Walker?s book is a must read, IMO. I imagine with stories like the above ? heck, with the last seven years since he wrote it ? he could update the book, adding a chapter on the Trump Era alone. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 13 00:12:17 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 17:12:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <0721DAF3-0888-407A-9BE0-E8E6736A1F22@gmail.com> References: <003701d65883$91a8d7d0$b4fa8770$@rainier66.com> <0721DAF3-0888-407A-9BE0-E8E6736A1F22@gmail.com> Message-ID: <014501d658aa$4540fd60$cfc2f820$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] order of the arrow Is there an actual news story backing this thread? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst Hi Dan, I haven?t found it. My sources are the scouting people who I see regularly. I can easily imagine the news stories exist somewhere, and if so I would like to see how this is being reported. >From an inside view: we have a guy who has been scouting culture for decades. He is really into that, his son is into it, priceless he is. Once a year he does a special bridging ceremony, where the cub scouts cross the symbolic bridge from childhood to manhood. It is kind of a ceremonial rite of passage (do ignore for the moment that manhood in today?s world doesn?t really start at age 11 (but rather somewhere in the mid 30s (if ever (but in the olden days it did (an 11 year old boy had adult responsibilities thrust upon him.))))) In our bridging ceremony, the boys go from paws on the path to footprints on the trail. It isn?t a game: that one ceremony is like a graduation, only no airhorns and no screwing around. We don?t let the guys bridge unless they treat the whole thing with respect. In that organization, tradition is something to be respected, not torn down. This one sparkling jewel of a guy spent a fortune on an ?Indian Chief? costume, with the deerskin, the full feathered headdress, the traditional decorations, the whole thing. We really look forward to those ceremonies every year, with his reciting perfectly from memory what is nearly an hour ceremony. Now we are being told he must stop. Broke his noble heart. Broke my ignoble heart. I do hope we can get that decision reversed. Hope springs eternal. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 00:35:30 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 17:35:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <014501d658aa$4540fd60$cfc2f820$@rainier66.com> References: <014501d658aa$4540fd60$cfc2f820$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <9864A52B-E9FA-4447-8A0C-972427EBDD63@gmail.com> On Jul 12, 2020, at 5:13 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] order of the arrow > > Is there an actual news story backing this thread? > > Regards, > > > Dan > > Hi Dan, > > I haven?t found it. My sources are the scouting people who I see regularly. I can easily imagine the news stories exist somewhere, and if so I would like to see how this is being reported. I asked because my quick search found nothing. So I presume this is merely a rumor. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 13 00:45:03 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 17:45:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <9864A52B-E9FA-4447-8A0C-972427EBDD63@gmail.com> References: <014501d658aa$4540fd60$cfc2f820$@rainier66.com> <9864A52B-E9FA-4447-8A0C-972427EBDD63@gmail.com> Message-ID: <001201d658ae$d9018e80$8b04ab80$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] order of the arrow On Jul 12, 2020, at 5:13 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] order of the arrow Is there an actual news story backing this thread? Regards, Dan Hi Dan, I haven?t found it. My sources are the scouting people who I see regularly. I can easily imagine the news stories exist somewhere, and if so I would like to see how this is being reported. >?I asked because my quick search found nothing. So I presume this is merely a rumor. Regards, Dan No Dan, do let me assure you, we were told by our local council to stand down on the Indian stuff at our bridging this year. That isn?t a news story as far as I know, but I would be interested if other councils are doing likewise. This is the first time in a coupla decades we didn?t do any of the Indian stuff at our bridging. It isn?t clear that this was permanent, and we are assuming it isn?t. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Jul 13 02:05:24 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 22:05:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <001201d658ae$d9018e80$8b04ab80$@rainier66.com> References: <014501d658aa$4540fd60$cfc2f820$@rainier66.com> <9864A52B-E9FA-4447-8A0C-972427EBDD63@gmail.com> <001201d658ae$d9018e80$8b04ab80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <67e204bc69294050e0eb0e6068dc29cb.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > > > Is there an actual news story backing this thread? > https://www.voanews.com/usa/native-americans-boy-scouts-stop-plundering-our-past https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/boy-scouts-have-been-one-of-the-worst-culprits-of-cultural-appropriation-Cf-Moaug90Knza6-Oz9A9A https://oa-bsa.org/article/oa-ceremonial-update From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 04:18:37 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:18:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Solar power satellite logistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 3:44 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > if you can get the cost of lifting parts power > satellite parts down to ~$100/kg, they come in at about half the cost > per kWh of fission plants. > Does that include the cost to make the satellites and the rectennas, and run them all, or is that just comparing the launch cost of satellites to the total cost of nuclear fission plants? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 13 04:27:52 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:27:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <67e204bc69294050e0eb0e6068dc29cb.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <014501d658aa$4540fd60$cfc2f820$@rainier66.com> <9864A52B-E9FA-4447-8A0C-972427EBDD63@gmail.com> <001201d658ae$d9018e80$8b04ab80$@rainier66.com> <67e204bc69294050e0eb0e6068dc29cb.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <000501d658cd$f9c44da0$ed4ce8e0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of MB via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] order of the arrow > > > Is there an actual news story backing this thread? > https://www.voanews.com/usa/native-americans-boy-scouts-stop-plundering-our- past https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/boy-scouts-have-been-one-of-the-worst-cu lprits-of-cultural-appropriation-Cf-Moaug90Knza6-Oz9A9A https://oa-bsa.org/article/oa-ceremonial-update _______________________________________________ Thanks MB. I said goodbye to a good friend today, so I am too emotionally drained to deal with the merits or otherwise of scouts and cultural appropriation. I am too likely to let emotion guide my writing rather than reason. I can imagine Keith is there too. We are both going to miss Steve Van Sickle. I might write about that in another thread. spike From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 13 04:44:54 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:44:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] zoom memorial Message-ID: <000901d658d0$5aa0fc70$0fe2f550$@rainier66.com> I mentioned earlier that Steve Van Sickle had passed on. He was on occasional poster here. We met thru ExI: he posted me offlist and asked questions about stuff I had mentioned. We became good friends and were hitting the local steak burgers on the equinoxes for about the last 10 yrs. We missed out this spring because of covid, so I hadn't seen him since about last September. Steve was a very special guy, a rare combination of brains and kindness. He was a rare example of absurdly smart but it didn't go to his head. He maintained his humility and humanity. Since he moved back to the neighborhood from Phoenex, he was laboring at a cryonics research company operating on a shoestring and a hope. His motive was to try to find a way to preserve organs for transplantation. He was motivated not for himself but as a way to help humanity. With his brains he could have made tons of money, but he chose to spend his professional life working towards organ preservation. Keith do feel free to jump in here and save me from me. You might know more about Steve's research than I do. When we got together Steve often wanted to talk space stuff, and he understood that better than I understand cryonics. The only thing I could really contribute was only indirect: control ideas for his machine he developed. Today our weary world is sorely missing its Steve Van Sickle. spike From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 07:36:58 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 00:36:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <67e204bc69294050e0eb0e6068dc29cb.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <67e204bc69294050e0eb0e6068dc29cb.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: On Jul 12, 2020, at 8:11 PM, MB via extropy-chat wrote: > >> Is there an actual news story backing this thread? >> > > > https://www.voanews.com/usa/native-americans-boy-scouts-stop-plundering-our-past > > https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/boy-scouts-have-been-one-of-the-worst-culprits-of-cultural-appropriation-Cf-Moaug90Knza6-Oz9A9A > > https://oa-bsa.org/article/oa-ceremonial-update Thanks! My quick search was obviously a bit too cursory. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Jul 13 14:10:40 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 10:10:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Loss - was order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <000501d658cd$f9c44da0$ed4ce8e0$@rainier66.com> References: <014501d658aa$4540fd60$cfc2f820$@rainier66.com> <9864A52B-E9FA-4447-8A0C-972427EBDD63@gmail.com> <001201d658ae$d9018e80$8b04ab80$@rainier66.com> <67e204bc69294050e0eb0e6068dc29cb.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <000501d658cd$f9c44da0$ed4ce8e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <629c465335eef49eab77d0b28699a60f.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > I said goodbye to a good friend today, so I am too emotionally drained to > deal with the merits or otherwise of scouts and cultural appropriation. I > am too likely to let emotion guide my writing rather than reason. > > I am sorry for the loss, spike. As we get older we lose so many who matter, and may eventually wonder what's the point of going on, it gets lonesome out here at the far end of the curve. I've known many folks in that situation, and see myself walking that path now. Sympathy. MB From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 13 14:30:46 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 07:30:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Loss - was order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <629c465335eef49eab77d0b28699a60f.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <014501d658aa$4540fd60$cfc2f820$@rainier66.com> <9864A52B-E9FA-4447-8A0C-972427EBDD63@gmail.com> <001201d658ae$d9018e80$8b04ab80$@rainier66.com> <67e204bc69294050e0eb0e6068dc29cb.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <000501d658cd$f9c44da0$ed4ce8e0$@rainier66.com> <629c465335eef49eab77d0b28699a60f.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <006201d65922$33494bd0$99dbe370$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of MB via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Loss - was order of the arrow > I said goodbye to a good friend today, so I am too emotionally drained > to deal with the merits or otherwise of scouts and cultural > appropriation. I am too likely to let emotion guide my writing rather than reason. > > I am sorry for the loss, spike. As we get older we lose so many who matter, and may eventually wonder what's the point of going on, it gets lonesome out here at the far end of the curve. I've known many folks in that situation, and see myself walking that path now. Sympathy. MB _______________________________________________ You are too kind, MB; this one was a loss not just to me but to all of us. Steve was a very special guy. I was one of the very lucky ones: he and I could go to lunch once in a while. Steve made a breakthrough discovery in organ preservation which I hope I can get Tanya Jones (no relation) former ExI poster and collaborator, to write about. I haven't seen the results but she described it vaguely at yesterday's zoomorial. Plenty of us are at the point in life where we are burying friends and family members at a tragic frequency. We are regularly reminded life is short, decide what you want to do, get er dun now for there may be no tomorrow. Regarding the point of going on and loneliness: I see the internet as a lifeline for many of those who are isolated. Regardless of where you are, you can find a group of likeminded people, interesting, entertaining, humble, annoying, absurd, all the stuff you would get at a meat-world party with normal people except without the possibility of either contagion or copulation. Such a deal! Imagine in previous times when one was out at the far end of the curve, before the internet and before Zoom. Compare to now. Life is good. It is getting better. MB you are among friends here. spike From ben at zaiboc.net Mon Jul 13 14:52:11 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 15:52:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] lag time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <94152d34-12ea-a656-f29b-115046a46938@zaiboc.net> On 13/07/2020 15:11, billw wrote: > ben wrote; Socialising is not a crucial part of everyone's development. > > Of course I have to disagree with this.? A kid who is home-schooled > and has no interaction with his peers otherwise is going to be a > social moron.? However, suppose the Fall and Spring terms, 2020-2021, > is canceled. That is far too short a time for any significant > disability to happen. It would take years. > Of course. There's social development and there's socialising. I was reacting to the concept of 'forced socialising', which is a horror to me. Every human needs a degree of social development - recognising other human's faces, learning to respond to them in a way that doesn't get you beaten up, generally developing Theory of Mind, that kind of thing. Beyond that, though, nobody should be forced to socialise. Some won't mind, some will hate it, some will be traumatised by it. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Mon Jul 13 15:07:03 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 11:07:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Loss - was order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <006201d65922$33494bd0$99dbe370$@rainier66.com> References: <006201d65922$33494bd0$99dbe370$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <554749A0-63F1-44DA-B88A-C7C6299DD14F@alumni.virginia.edu> As a Brotherhood Arrowman, I am too am very disappointed to hear this. OA is also described as Scouting?s Honor Society, so to lose that is significant. Could OA continue without the Native American references? It?s hard to image. My take is this sub-organization has only increased knowledge, understanding, and appreciation for Native Americans. Wimachtendienk Wingolauchsik Witahemui. -Henry > On Jul 13, 2020, at 10:31 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? >> On Behalf Of MB via extropy-chat > Subject: [ExI] Loss - was order of the arrow > > >> I said goodbye to a good friend today, so I am too emotionally drained >> to deal with the merits or otherwise of scouts and cultural >> appropriation. I am too likely to let emotion guide my writing rather > than reason. >> >> > > I am sorry for the loss, spike. As we get older we lose so many who matter, > and may eventually wonder what's the point of going on, it gets > lonesome out here at the far end of the curve. I've known many folks in > that situation, and see myself walking that path now. > > Sympathy. > > MB > > _______________________________________________ > > > You are too kind, MB; this one was a loss not just to me but to all of us. > Steve was a very special guy. I was one of the very lucky ones: he and I > could go to lunch once in a while. Steve made a breakthrough discovery in > organ preservation which I hope I can get Tanya Jones (no relation) former > ExI poster and collaborator, to write about. I haven't seen the results but > she described it vaguely at yesterday's zoomorial. > > Plenty of us are at the point in life where we are burying friends and > family members at a tragic frequency. We are regularly reminded life is > short, decide what you want to do, get er dun now for there may be no > tomorrow. > > Regarding the point of going on and loneliness: I see the internet as a > lifeline for many of those who are isolated. Regardless of where you are, > you can find a group of likeminded people, interesting, entertaining, > humble, annoying, absurd, all the stuff you would get at a meat-world party > with normal people except without the possibility of either contagion or > copulation. Such a deal! > > Imagine in previous times when one was out at the far end of the curve, > before the internet and before Zoom. Compare to now. Life is good. It is > getting better. MB you are among friends here. > > 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 Mon Jul 13 16:16:30 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 09:16:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Loss - was order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <554749A0-63F1-44DA-B88A-C7C6299DD14F@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <006201d65922$33494bd0$99dbe370$@rainier66.com> <554749A0-63F1-44DA-B88A-C7C6299DD14F@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: <008601d65930$f89fc1d0$e9df4570$@rainier66.com> .>... On Behalf Of Henry Rivera via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Loss - was order of the arrow >...As a Brotherhood Arrowman, I am too am very disappointed to hear this. OA is also described as Scouting?s Honor Society, so to lose that is significant. Could OA continue without the Native American references? It?s hard to image. My take is this sub-organization has only increased knowledge, understanding, and appreciation for Native Americans. Wimachtendienk Wingolauchsik Witahemui. -Henry Henry! Far too humble you are, brave warrior! I will offer an explanation for how scouting is in a way incompatible with our modern culture. Much of our Indian stuff comes from Rudyard Kipling (and other Anglo writers.) They were wildly poplar in the formative years of scouting (1900-1910 for instance) and influenced Seton and the others. Kipling was a British guy who was born and grew up in India part time and Britain part time. The stuff he wrote about such as Jungle Book was inspired by India (which is why they have tigers there (we don't have tigers in North America (it would be cool in a way if we did.))) Anyway... Kipling is cool. He wrote about India and the Indians. Well Native Americans were called Indians, sooo... OK then. (By the way... how do we really know that Native Americans were not actually from India originally?) Here is a very condensed version of scout folklore told around the campfire by the revered scoutmaster, which you may recognize as classic Kipling: The young brave labored under the hot sun, chipping flint to make into arrows so that he could be mighty in battle and bring home food to his family. The Great Spirit came to him as he labored, since he was humble and good, offered to make him the greatest and most powerful thing. The young brave asked to be the sun, for the sun came down on the entire world, burning the skin but also giving life. The Great Spirit made him the sun, and he shone down on the world. But the cloud came over and blocked the sun. There was nothing the sun could do, demonstrating that the cloud was more powerful than the sun. So the sun requested that the Great Spirit make him the cloud. The cloud drifted around, shaded who he would. But the mountain stabbed thru the cloud and there was nothing the cloud could do. The mountain was more powerful than the cloud. The cloud implored the Great Spirit to make him the mountain. So the mountain was the greatest thing, the most powerful, until... the mountain felt something chipping away. There was nothing the mountain could do to stop the humble young brave from chipping flint to make his spearpoints and arrows. So the mountain implored the Great Spirit to make him the Indian brave. The Indian boy grew to a man, then to a great warrior, hunter and eventually a chief, with the understanding that with humility comes understanding and happiness. OK cool. The guys love it (and the dads do too (to fully understand this whole culture, one must really get the whole father/son dynamic (tragically lacking in far too much of modern society (which downplays the role of fathers (when it should be promoting the role of fathers.))))) The story is an example of what we often are criticized for, which is filled with irony in a way. We are borrowing "Indian" culture and symbols in a way to teach what amounts to European values. None of that stuff in that story comes from Native American culture, or if so, they got it from Kipling too. Kipling was in the colonies for a few years in the 1890s, living in New York and DC, but few would argue he was an expert on Native American culture. Eh, we love his stuff anyway. We like SciFi written by people who are not experts on space travel. We appropriate a culture that doesn't really exist as a way to teach about our own culture. spike From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 13 16:46:44 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 09:46:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Loss - was order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <008601d65930$f89fc1d0$e9df4570$@rainier66.com> References: <006201d65922$33494bd0$99dbe370$@rainier66.com> <554749A0-63F1-44DA-B88A-C7C6299DD14F@alumni.virginia.edu> <008601d65930$f89fc1d0$e9df4570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008e01d65935$31b591d0$9520b570$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: spike at rainier66.com >...Henry! Far too humble you are, brave warrior! spike At yesterday's memorial, attendees discussed whether Steve was a pragmatist or a perfectionist. From my view, Steve was an idealist. He saw things as they have never been and asked, Why not? He realized that pragmatism settles for fair, that perfection is unattainable, but that the ideal is excellence (do pardon please my invoking Steve Van Sickle as the model human (for I might be doing that for a while (in my view the much-beloved man was worthy of it.))) The articles MB kindly posted for us yesterday mentioned something that illustrates that organizations cannot be perfect. Example: the writer suggested that scouts spend less time talking about a fictional version of Native American life and go cut firewood for actual Native Americans. A collective gasp went up, as dismayed moderns shrieked "Cut fire WHAT?" Wood fires are very nearly illegal in many places. There is no perfection available. Scouting is an idealist organization. We see things as they should be. We know life isn't fair, we know life can never be perfect. But life is good. Good is better than fair. Steve was an idealist who demonstrated that our job here is to make life better, for better is better than good, even if we never make it to perfect. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 16:55:40 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 09:55:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow Message-ID: Spike, there is a straightforward way to satisfy everyone's concerns about "cultural appropriation." It would hardly be appropriate for anyone to bitch about the "order of the arrow" for a boy scout troop who were native americans or had been adopted into a native tribe even as honorary members. As far as I know all the tribes had adoption procedures. There were hundreds to thousands of such cases where Europenas were adopted into tribes, not to mention the large number of women who were simply kidnapped into the tribes. It would take considerable effort to work out the details, but the proposal would be for the boy scouts to be adopted into a tribe or tribes. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 16:59:10 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 11:59:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] lag time In-Reply-To: <94152d34-12ea-a656-f29b-115046a46938@zaiboc.net> References: <94152d34-12ea-a656-f29b-115046a46938@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: I am not even familiar with the term 'forced socialising'. As an extreme introvert (99%ile) I would rebel but I don't think I would be traumatised. Many in education and sociology believe in the Blank Slate - everyone is alike; everone has the same potentials. Stupid. Won't fact genetic facts. What do you have to do to get a Master's in Education: have a pulse and a Visa card. Not trying to offend anyone!! Just telling you my experience. bill w On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 9:54 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 13/07/2020 15:11, billw wrote: > > ben wrote; Socialising is not a crucial part of everyone's development. > > Of course I have to disagree with this. A kid who is home-schooled and > has no interaction with his peers otherwise is going to be a social moron. > However, suppose the Fall and Spring terms, 2020-2021, is canceled. That is > far too short a time for any significant disability to happen. It would > take years. > > > Of course. > > There's social development and there's socialising. I was reacting to the > concept of 'forced socialising', which is a horror to me. Every human needs > a degree of social development - recognising other human's faces, learning > to respond to them in a way that doesn't get you beaten up, generally > developing Theory of Mind, that kind of thing. Beyond that, though, nobody > should be forced to socialise. Some won't mind, some will hate it, some > will be traumatised by it. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 17:12:26 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 10:12:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Solar power satellite logistics Message-ID: Adrian Tymes wroteL On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 3:44 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> if you can get the cost of lifting parts power >> satellite parts down to ~$100/kg, they come in at about half the cost >> per kWh of fission plants. > Does that include the cost to make the satellites and the rectennas, and run them all, or is that just comparing the launch cost of satellites to the total cost of nuclear fission plants? "Per kWh" takes into account all the costs. The typical costs for nuclear energy is around 11 cents per kWh (UK numbers). The base case for 6.5 kg/kW power sats is $900/kW for the parts and labor in space $1300/kW to the lift cost to GEO $200/kW for the rectenna $2400/kW total. Using the ratio of 80,000 to one, the power would cost 3 cents per kWh. This includes maintenance. For comparison, the lowest cost in the mideast for PV power is 1.35 cents per kWh. That's down from 1.69 cents per kWh a year ago. Keith From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 17:25:18 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 10:25:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Solar power satellite logistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 10:14 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Adrian Tymes wroteL > > On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 3:44 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >> if you can get the cost of lifting parts power > >> satellite parts down to ~$100/kg, they come in at about half the cost > >> per kWh of fission plants. > > > Does that include the cost to make the satellites and the rectennas, and > run them all, or is that just comparing the launch cost of satellites to > the total cost of nuclear fission plants? > > "Per kWh" takes into account all the costs. The typical costs for > nuclear energy is around 11 cents per kWh (UK numbers). > > The base case for 6.5 kg/kW power sats is > > $900/kW for the parts and labor in space > $1300/kW to the lift cost to GEO > $200/kW for the rectenna > > $2400/kW total. Using the ratio of 80,000 to one, the power would > cost 3 cents per kWh. This includes maintenance. > > For comparison, the lowest cost in the mideast for PV power is 1.35 > cents per kWh. That's down from 1.69 cents per kWh a year ago. > I assume that "ratio of" means the infrastructure is rated to provide 80,000 hours - just over 9 years - of output. That seems possibly reasonable, but where does that figure come from? If the lift cost is $100/kg, does that mean the solar power satellite designs you are aware of produce 13 kW/kg? Parts is one thing (though at 13 kW/kg, that's about $100/kg, which seems a bit high given the parts in question), but what sort of "labor in space" are you thinking of (that can't be done for less cost by automation, or bypassed entirely)? Could this be driven down to closer to $130/kW, or less? And do you have a source for the rectenna cost? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 13 17:49:53 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 10:49:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001001d6593e$03cc3f90$0b64beb0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] order of the arrow >...Spike, there is a straightforward way to satisfy everyone's concerns about "cultural appropriation." It would hardly be appropriate for anyone to bitch about the "order of the arrow" for a boy scout troop who were native americans or had been adopted into a native tribe even as honorary members. As far as I know all the tribes had adoption procedures. There were hundreds to thousands of such cases where Europenas were adopted into tribes, not to mention the large number of women who were simply kidnapped into the tribes. It would take considerable effort to work out the details, but the proposal would be for the boy scouts to be adopted into a tribe or tribes. Keith _______________________________________________ Hi Keith, This has already been done: the Muckleshoot tribe near Enumclaw Washington adopted Boy Scouts of America in the 1970s. There was a ceremony and everything. This led to even more controversy, for this was before DNA tests, so it was unclear if the Muckleshoot Chief was more descended from the Duwamish and Puyallup people or was more... Greek. Hmmm. OK, well does it matter? Why? The recent go-around with the politician claiming to be Native American, then doing a DNA test demonstrating otherwise reminded us that in some tribes even being 100% Cherokee by DNA doesn't make one a member of the tribe. Being far less that 100% by DNA doesn't preclude becoming a member of the tribe. In any case, the Muckleshoot now has (or is it Muckleshoots have?) a casino which supplies the needed funding, so I don't know if their adoption of Scouts would still be valid (I don't know if we kept up the payments.) I might have accidentally discovered an insight with that parenthetical inquiry in the previous comment. We moderns tend to think of people as individuals. The tribes tend to think of the group as one organism, like an ant colony in a way, a group of individuals but the organism being all, holism vs reductionism. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 17:59:00 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:59:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] order of the arrow In-Reply-To: <001001d6593e$03cc3f90$0b64beb0$@rainier66.com> References: <001001d6593e$03cc3f90$0b64beb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The tribes tend to think of the group as one organism, like an ant colony in a way, a group of individuals but the organism being all, holism vs reductionism. spike very Oriental thinking - bill w On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 12:51 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] order of the arrow > > >...Spike, there is a straightforward way to satisfy everyone's concerns > about "cultural appropriation." > > It would hardly be appropriate for anyone to bitch about the "order of the > arrow" for a boy scout troop who were native americans or had been adopted > into a native tribe even as honorary members. > > As far as I know all the tribes had adoption procedures. There were > hundreds to thousands of such cases where Europenas were adopted into > tribes, not to mention the large number of women who were simply kidnapped > into the tribes. > > It would take considerable effort to work out the details, but the proposal > would be for the boy scouts to be adopted into a tribe or tribes. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > > > Hi Keith, > > This has already been done: the Muckleshoot tribe near Enumclaw Washington > adopted Boy Scouts of America in the 1970s. There was a ceremony and > everything. This led to even more controversy, for this was before DNA > tests, so it was unclear if the Muckleshoot Chief was more descended from > the Duwamish and Puyallup people or was more... Greek. Hmmm. OK, well > does > it matter? Why? The recent go-around with the politician claiming to be > Native American, then doing a DNA test demonstrating otherwise reminded us > that in some tribes even being 100% Cherokee by DNA doesn't make one a > member of the tribe. Being far less that 100% by DNA doesn't preclude > becoming a member of the tribe. > > In any case, the Muckleshoot now has (or is it Muckleshoots have?) a casino > which supplies the needed funding, so I don't know if their adoption of > Scouts would still be valid (I don't know if we kept up the payments.) I > might have accidentally discovered an insight with that parenthetical > inquiry in the previous comment. We moderns tend to think of people as > individuals. The tribes tend to think of the group as one organism, like > an > ant colony in a way, a group of individuals but the organism being all, > holism vs reductionism. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bmd54321 at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 18:07:50 2020 From: bmd54321 at gmail.com (Brian Manning Delaney) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 14:07:50 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The use and abuse of Sweden [Re: Sweden] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: El 2020-07-08 a las 10:44, Keith Henson via extropy-chat escribi?: > John Clark > > snip > >> It Seems that all those Swedes died for nothing. > > John, it's not over. Indeed. As Hegel wrote, "The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk." The right has typically used and abused Sweden as the socialist nightmare one wants to avoid. (Sweden is neither a nightmare nor very socialist.) Now it's the left's turn to abuse Sweden: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html John's post may have been inspired by the NY Times article. This article is so riddled with errors it's hard to know where to begin. Point-by-point critique that catches most of them: https://emanuelkarlsten.se/multiple-errors-in-the-new-york-times-article-about-swedens-corona-strategy/ I almost think badly trained or written AI is drafting these articles about Sweden when I see, yet again, the absurd string of words, "compared to its Nordic neighbors". Sweden is vastly different from Norway and Denmark. One critical way is the higher number of immigrants in Sweden. Sweden's immigrants are more likely to be overweight and have dark skin (hence lower vitamin D levels) than non-immigrants in Sweden. Overweight and insufficient blood levels of vitamin D are strongly correlated with poor COVID-19 outcomes. Americans and others should find better ways to push domestic policies than by making up facts about an entirely separate country and culture. Regardless: the jury is still out. Brian From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 18:25:29 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 11:25:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] zoom memorial Message-ID: wrote: > I mentioned earlier that Steve Van Sickle had passed on. snip > Steve was a very special guy, a rare combination of brains and kindness. He was a rare example of absurdly smart but it didn't go to his head. He maintained his humility and humanity. Knowledgeable as well. In talking with Steve I never found a subject that he didn't know at least as much about as I did. On some subjects he knew much more than I did. Several years ago, I started writing a story about a cult that built nukes. Steve helped with getting the leadin section accurate. The Armageddon Archives Chapter 1 Pipe Dreams Acrid smoke from the previous shot thinned out as the turret vent blowers sucked it away. "Sabot!" the tank commander voice came through the earphones over the muted sound of the tank's turbine engine. The gunner moved the sights away from the tank he had just wrecked. He centered the M1A2's 120 mm M256 smooth bore cannon, on the next Iraqi tank. Its crew had parked it (according to the rangefinder) 2735 meters distant in a grove of palm trees. The loader slammed a sabot round into the chamber and locked the breech. The gun fired, rocking the 68-ton tank back on its treads. The discarding sabot round left the tank's main gun at 1600 meters per second, nearly a mile a second. The aluminum and plastic spacers that kept the 25 mm round centered in the barrel fell off in the first hundred meters. After that the dense depleted uranium, fin stabilized, armor piercing round lost little of its velocity. It arrived at the Iraqi tank 2 second later with devastating effect. "Turkey shoot." The tank driver said over the intercom. "You guys think there's anyone in those tanks?" "One way to be sure." The commander replied. "Sabot!" After blasting the turret off the last tank, the Abrams started off down the road toward Baghdad. It left behind 30 pounds of depleted uranium, almost pure U238, which had formed the long, lethal Sabot rounds. (Post analysis confirmed the driver's suspicions. The crews for the three T72 tanks were not foolish enough to sit in the parked tanks.) snip > Keith do feel free to jump in here and save me from me. You might know more Steve's research than I do. I don't. > Today our weary world is sorely missing its Steve Van Sickle. About all we can do is try to avoid what happened to Steve. If you are living alone, and are signed up for cryonis, you need to have someone check on you every day. Or we need an electronic system such as an Apple watch programmed to alert someone when your pulse fails. The hardware looks like it will do the job, the programming needs to be done. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 02:32:46 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 19:32:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins Message-ID: The foofarah over the name of a certain baseball team I find to be silly, but if they feel political correctness forces them to change the name I suggest "Blueskins" as a reference (sort of uncertain) to the Picts painting themselves with Woad. Woad would become the official team color. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 02:34:12 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 19:34:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Cultural appropriation Message-ID: I find objecting to "cultural appropriation" ridiculous. What this means is that the population of those who "appropriate" find some aspect (meme) of the originating culture attractive. Having elements of your culture spread into other cultures is by objective measure desirable or at least it has been the standard by which humans advanced their control over the world ever since whatever date you want to assign as the origin of the species. In the context of the thread that brought this to mind, the flow of elements of culture has been much larger in the opposite direction. Consider breeding and riding horses, widely practiced by native tribes and absolutely an import from the Spanish. Or consider sheep, critical to the Navajo way of life. Are motor vehicles rejected by natiave Americans as foreign culture? Nope. Keith From sen.otaku at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 03:53:56 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 22:53:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39C1D914-0AF4-445B-A745-79333ECDDA2C@gmail.com> Cultural appropriation. > On Jul 13, 2020, at 9:32 PM, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote: > > The foofarah over the name of a certain baseball team I find to be > silly, but if they feel political correctness forces them to change > the name I suggest "Blueskins" as a reference (sort of uncertain) to > the Picts painting themselves with Woad. Woad would become the > official team color. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 03:59:33 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 20:59:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008301d65993$2ef17910$8cd46b30$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Blueskins The foofarah over the name of a certain baseball team I find to be silly, but if they feel political correctness forces them to change the name I suggest "Blueskins" as a reference (sort of uncertain) to the Picts painting themselves with Woad. Woad would become the official team color. Keith _______________________________________________ Oh no Keith, on the contrary, me lad. Would you want this: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=blue+man+group&t=chromentp&atb=v135-1&iar=images&i ax=images&ia=images ...when you could have this: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kirk+with+the+green+woman&t=chromentp&atb=v135-1&p age=1&adx=sltb&sexp=%7B%22v7exp%22%3A%22a%22%2C%22sltexp%22%3A%22b%22%2C%22r giexp%22%3A%22b%22%7D&iax=images&ia=images The green woman from the original series, best Star Trek episode evah. If we must stay with the whole dermal theme, definitely the Green Skins. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 05:53:35 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 22:53:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Solar power satellite logistics Message-ID: Adrian Tymes wrote: snip > I assume that "ratio of" means the infrastructure is rated to provide 80,000 hours - just over 9 years - of output. That seems possibly reasonable, but where does that figure come from? Levelized cost of electricity. It is exactly the same way you get ~11 cents per kWh for nuclear plants. It is not complicated, look it up or ask me to send you the spreadsheet I used. > If the lift cost is $100/kg, does that mean the solar power satellite designs you are aware of produce 13 kW/kg? No. The power satellites have to be moved to GEO and that about doubles the transport cost to LEO, thus the 6.5 kg/kW number. This takes electric propulsion and considerable development work, but looks feasible. Space junk complicates building power satellites. It looks like the parts have to go up to a 2000 km orbit to get above the junk. Otherwise, the power sats get hit too many times on the way out to GEO. 2000 km is in the lower Van Allen belt, and the radiation level there precedes human workers. > Parts is one thing (though at 13 kW/kg, that's about $100/kg, which seems a bit high given the parts in question), but what sort of "labor in space" are you thinking of (that can't be done for less cost by automation, or bypassed entirely)? Could this be driven down to closer to $130/kW, or less? I don't know. If you want to work out a less expensive design, be my guest. Getting the cost down to $900/kW took years. One of the hard problems was collecting 10 GW and getting it to the transmitter. Don't forget you have to generate 2kW in space to get one kW on the ground due to transmission loss. I don't work on power satellite design much any more because I don't know enough about robotics and teleoperation to put a price tag on it. Without such cost and development numbers, the financial model is incomplete and of no use. I have asked the foremost robotics engineer of our time what it would cost and no answer was forthcoming. > And do you have a source for the rectenna cost? It was one of the early things I did. Ten years ago or more by now. Nobody has ever challenged my work on rectenna cost or proposed a different cost. This is probably due to lack of interest. Some changes happened over the years. For example, the original idea of underground wiring to collect the power has been replaced by lower cost overhead wires. It is not easy to get 5 GW of electric power out of a rectenna. Some of this has been discussed on the Google Group power satellite economics. If you ask I can add you to the group so you can post. (You can read it without being a member.) Keith From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 06:32:36 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 23:32:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Solar power satellite logistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 10:55 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Some of this has been discussed on the Google Group power satellite > economics. If you ask I can add you to the group so you can post. > (You can read it without being a member.) > Sure. I am getting occasional but more frequent pings about this these days. It's far (far far) from a full-time professional concern, but it would be good to know where to ask for data I can pass along if and when the pings ramp up. (The latest instance is over at the AAAS's forum; the thread is technically still active as of today.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 06:50:37 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2020 23:50:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins Message-ID: wrote: > Oh no Keith, on the contrary, me lad. Would you want this: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=blue+man+group&t=chromentp&atb=v135-1&iar=images&i ax=images&ia=images If you have any hearing left, you definitely want to avoid Blue Men concerts. > ...when you could have this: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kirk+with+the+green+woman&t=chromentp&atb=v135-1&p age=1&adx=sltb&sexp=%7B%22v7exp%22%3A%22a%22%2C%22sltexp%22%3A%22b%22%2C%22r giexp%22%3A%22b%22%7D&iax=images&ia=images > The green woman from the original series, best Star Trek episode evah. > If we must stay with the whole dermal theme, definitely the Green Skins. I have no use for baseball, so it would not make the least difference to me what skin color they picked. But the blue painted Picts were reputed to be fierce warriors, enough of a problem that the Romans built a wall clear across Briton (I have seen it). I don't know of any warrior groups that painted themselves green. If a fierce reputation is a requirement, do you know of any such groups? Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 08:03:47 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 01:03:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Assimilated, chipping arrowheads and a bit of history. Message-ID: I worked with two Native Americans when I was in the geophysics business. Both were as far as I knew, completely assimilated into main culture (as it existed back in the middle 1960s). You get to know fellow workers fairly well on remote jobs. I have sometimes wondered what became of George, a Papago. He was sharp, and the skinniest Papago I ever saw. I can't pull up the name of the other one who might have been Cherokee. He made thousands of arrowheads for the tourist trade when he was younger (they are easier to make than to find). I am sure he didn't make them out in the hot sun and I really doubt that was common for any of the Native American specialists who made arrowheads. The way he did it used an alcohol lamp, a laboratory clamp to hold a lump of flint or glass, and a wet pipe cleaner. Touching the hot flint with the wet pipe cleaner caused a small piece to spall off. I seem to remember that he could turn out 30 or 40 an hour. I have never looked up manufacturing arrowheads, but it would not surprise me if something similar was widely known. I know very little about the Boy Scouts, I knew a few of them when I was of that age and they did not impress me as kids I wanted to be around. (My brother was in Cub Scouts but did not go further.) But I wonder if they teach chipping out arrowheads? You don't even need flint, glass works just fine. All you would need to add is safety glasses. By the mid 1800s, the natives who were still fighting had switched to rifles. They tended to be good shots. Joseph Dyson, one of my GG grandfathers was a member of the Nebraska Cavalry. He was shot and killed in June 1863 by Sioux Indians on the Pawnee Reservation, north of Omaha in eastern Nebraska. My G grandfather was also in the Nebraska Cavalry. He survived the Civil War and died at 85 in 1910. Keith From mbb386 at main.nc.us Tue Jul 14 10:49:08 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 06:49:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: <39C1D914-0AF4-445B-A745-79333ECDDA2C@gmail.com> References: <39C1D914-0AF4-445B-A745-79333ECDDA2C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <04ebd33d0045937f5253f5f814c4ade4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> An old friend suggested they be named the "Foreskins" in honor of the d*ckheads who work there.... MB On Mon, July 13, 2020 23:53, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > Cultural appropriation. > >> On Jul 13, 2020, at 9:32 PM, Keith Henson via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> >> The foofarah over the name of a certain baseball team I find to be >> silly, but if they feel political correctness forces them to change >> the name I suggest "Blueskins" as a reference (sort of uncertain) to >> the Picts painting themselves with Woad. Woad would become the >> official team color. >> >> From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 11:35:03 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 07:35:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics Message-ID: Some statistics: Canada had 321 new cases of COVID-19 last Friday, the USA had 68,421. In Florida alone 15,300 people got sick from the virus on Saturday, that's 12 times more new cases than South Korea and Australia combined, and both countries have a larger population than Florida. But there is some good news, yesterday for the first time since March New York City did not have a single death from the virus. I also found this chart interesting: per capita death rates in the US 10x those in Europe and ours are rising, while theirs are falling John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 12:40:12 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 07:40:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: But there is some good news, yesterday for the first time since March New York City did not have a single death from the virus. john Is this rather definitive evidence that masks work? Nothing else has been done, I assume. bill w On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 6:37 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Some statistics: Canada had 321 new cases of COVID-19 last Friday, the USA > had 68,421. In Florida alone 15,300 people got sick from the virus on > Saturday, that's 12 times more new cases than South Korea and Australia > combined, and both countries have a larger population than Florida. But > there is some good news, yesterday for the first time since March New York > City did not have a single death from the virus. I also found this chart > interesting: > > per capita death rates in the US 10x those in Europe and ours are rising, > while theirs are falling > > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 12:54:26 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 07:54:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: <008301d65993$2ef17910$8cd46b30$@rainier66.com> References: <008301d65993$2ef17910$8cd46b30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: When you are on the green woman link, scroll down to see the stalactite - hilarious. bill w On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 11:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Subject: [ExI] Blueskins > > The foofarah over the name of a certain baseball team I find to be silly, > but if they feel political correctness forces them to change the name I > suggest "Blueskins" as a reference (sort of uncertain) to the Picts > painting > themselves with Woad. Woad would become the official team color. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > Oh no Keith, on the contrary, me lad. Would you want this: > > > https://duckduckgo.com/?q=blue+man+group&t=chromentp&atb=v135-1&iar=images&i > ax=images&ia=images > > > > ...when you could have this: > > > https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kirk+with+the+green+woman&t=chromentp&atb=v135-1&p > > age=1&adx=sltb&sexp=%7B%22v7exp%22%3A%22a%22%2C%22sltexp%22%3A%22b%22%2C%22r > giexp%22%3A%22b%22%7D&iax=images&ia=images > > > The green woman from the original series, best Star Trek episode evah. > > If we must stay with the whole dermal theme, definitely the Green Skins. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 13:00:06 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 06:00:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00c601d659de$b2b29c70$1817d550$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Blueskins >>... The green woman from the original series, best Star Trek episode evah. >>... If we must stay with the whole dermal theme, definitely the Green Skins. >...I have no use for baseball, so it would not make the least difference to me what skin color they picked. But the blue painted Picts were reputed to be fierce warriors, enough of a problem that the Romans built a wall clear across Briton (I have seen it). I don't know of any warrior groups that painted themselves green. If a fierce reputation is a requirement, do you know of any such groups? Keith _______________________________________________ I have a zen koan for that: Baseball schmaseball. It was said to have been coined by Buddha's Jewish friend. The game has been played to death, way past death. Boring. They need to spice it up with some cheerleaders or green women who run around the bases and distract the players or something to inject some desperately-needed novelty, sheesh. The steroids helped a little (at least you get to see these gorillas swat it out of the park (but then they try to say that is cheating (oy vey.))) spike From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 13:28:53 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:28:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't know that you can necessarily assume it was all due to masks (and no, I'm not an anti-masker). I live in CT and work in NYC (or did) so I've seen what was actually done first hand. Things started locking down in NYC around March 10. I know that because I went to a concert at MSG (with some trepidation) the night of the 10th, and everyone was still out in force. On the 11th, the day after, they started cancelling major events/large gatherings, and quickly moved to full lockdown. CT and NJ followed suit and began working together with NY to coordinate policy. It was a very long time after that before phase I reopening in CT/NJ and even longer in NYC. In my experience, people here took the lockdown seriously (with some grumblings). For example, I live near I-95 which is the main artery here. It is normally a nightmare at rush hour and bad on weekends. It was almost empty for months outside of the usual tractor trailers. Anyone who could switched to Peapod for groceries and stopped going out anywhere around here. I don't doubt that masks helped, but I think a large part of the success was people took it seriously and stayed home. CT has also had zero deaths lately and an extremely low transmission rate. It is almost stopped spreading here. On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:41 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > But there is some good news, yesterday for the first time since March New > York City did not have a single death from the virus. john > > Is this rather definitive evidence that masks work? Nothing else has been > done, I assume. bill w > > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 6:37 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Some statistics: Canada had 321 new cases of COVID-19 last Friday, the >> USA had 68,421. In Florida alone 15,300 people got sick from the virus on >> Saturday, that's 12 times more new cases than South Korea and Australia >> combined, and both countries have a larger population than Florida. But >> there is some good news, yesterday for the first time since March New York >> City did not have a single death from the virus. I also found this chart >> interesting: >> >> per capita death rates in the US 10x those in Europe and ours are rising, >> while theirs are falling >> >> >> John K Clark >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 13:32:20 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:32:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:42 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > But there is some good news, yesterday for the first time since March >> New York City did not have a single death from the virus. john > > > *> Is this rather definitive evidence that masks work? Nothing else has > been done, I assume. bill w* > It's not the total answer but you get more bang for your buck with facemasks than with just about anything else, it's a no brainer, it's the very first thing you should do because it's cheap and easy and helps quite a lot, but unfortunately Trump decided to make facemasks part of the culture wars which severely limited its use, especially in red states. A National Mask Mandate Could Save The U.S. Economy $1 Trillion, Goldman Sachs Says In addition New York City shut everything down and didn't reopen again until the virus had reached very low levels. In contrast, on the very day that Florida had by far the largest number of new COVID-19 cases that ANY state had EVER had, Disney, with the encouragement of the Republican governor, decided to reopen the largest amusement park in the world! John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 13:53:48 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 08:53:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: <00c601d659de$b2b29c70$1817d550$@rainier66.com> References: <00c601d659de$b2b29c70$1817d550$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I have a suggestion: honoring both the owner of the Washington football franchise (who caved in to big time corporate sponsors who threatened to withhold millions of ad revenue), and the origins of the ball itself, I suggest: Pigskins. Guess what that would do to the sales of that snack? bill w On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:03 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] Blueskins > > > >>... The green woman from the original series, best Star Trek episode > evah. > > >>... If we must stay with the whole dermal theme, definitely the Green > Skins. > > >...I have no use for baseball, so it would not make the least difference > to > me what skin color they picked. But the blue painted Picts were reputed to > be fierce warriors, enough of a problem that the Romans built a wall clear > across Briton (I have seen it). I don't know of any warrior groups that > painted themselves green. If a fierce reputation is a requirement, do you > know of any such groups? > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > I have a zen koan for that: > > Baseball schmaseball. > > It was said to have been coined by Buddha's Jewish friend. The game has > been played to death, way past death. Boring. They need to spice it up > with some cheerleaders or green women who run around the bases and distract > the players or something to inject some desperately-needed novelty, sheesh. > The steroids helped a little (at least you get to see these gorillas swat > it > out of the park (but then they try to say that is cheating (oy vey.))) > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 13:57:02 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 08:57:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Our Mississippi governor has finally seen the light. Not wearing one for months and not mandating it for anyone, he finally issued the order, which he says has no real legal stance. The last word on all of this will be Yogi Berra's: "It ain't over until it's over." bill w On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:36 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:42 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > But there is some good news, yesterday for the first time since March >>> New York City did not have a single death from the virus. john >> >> >> *> Is this rather definitive evidence that masks work? Nothing else has >> been done, I assume. bill w* >> > > It's not the total answer but you get more bang for your buck with > facemasks than with just about anything else, it's a no brainer, it's the > very first thing you should do because it's cheap and easy and helps quite > a lot, but unfortunately Trump decided to make facemasks part of the > culture wars which severely limited its use, especially in red states. > > A National Mask Mandate Could Save The U.S. Economy $1 Trillion, Goldman > Sachs Says > > > In addition New York City shut everything down and didn't reopen again > until the virus had reached very low levels. In contrast, on the very day > that Florida had by far the largest number of new COVID-19 cases that ANY > state had EVER had, Disney, with the encouragement of the Republican > governor, decided to reopen the largest amusement park in the world! > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 15:08:36 2020 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:08:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is meaningless nonsense. The case number is proportional to the population testing rate, and the testing is still conflating viral and antibody tests, which pick up literally any common cold antibodies, so it doesn't tell you anything useful even in individual cases, let alone the population aggregate. And hospitalizations and deaths are still an extremely noisy but basically horizontal noise floor equivalent roughly to about twice a normal flu season - even allowing for the fact that American hospitals are financially incentivized to massively overrreport COVID deaths. Somebody is trying to panic you. Because the panic is more contagious than the disease, and far more useful. And they're succeeding. Put a mask on and stop trying to retransmit it. On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:02 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Our Mississippi governor has finally seen the light. Not wearing one for > months and not mandating it for anyone, he finally issued the order, which > he says has no real legal stance. > > The last word on all of this will be Yogi Berra's: "It ain't over until > it's over." > > bill w > > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:36 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:42 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> > But there is some good news, yesterday for the first time since March >>>> New York City did not have a single death from the virus. john >>> >>> >>> *> Is this rather definitive evidence that masks work? Nothing else has >>> been done, I assume. bill w* >>> >> >> It's not the total answer but you get more bang for your buck with >> facemasks than with just about anything else, it's a no brainer, it's the >> very first thing you should do because it's cheap and easy and helps quite >> a lot, but unfortunately Trump decided to make facemasks part of the >> culture wars which severely limited its use, especially in red states. >> >> A National Mask Mandate Could Save The U.S. Economy $1 Trillion, Goldman >> Sachs Says >> >> >> In addition New York City shut everything down and didn't reopen again >> until the virus had reached very low levels. In contrast, on the very day >> that Florida had by far the largest number of new COVID-19 cases that ANY >> state had EVER had, Disney, with the encouragement of the Republican >> governor, decided to reopen the largest amusement park in the world! >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 15:41:15 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 08:41:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: References: <00c601d659de$b2b29c70$1817d550$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <013001d659f5$35eb7010$a1c25030$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Blueskins I have a suggestion?: Pigskins. bill w Speciesist! Next thing ya know, they will be promoting human supremacy! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 15:42:47 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 08:42:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics >?Our Mississippi governor has finally seen the light. Not wearing one for months and not mandating it for anyone, he finally issued the order, which he says has no real legal stance? bill w The governor has no legal authority to order civilians to wear anything. He is telling the truth. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 16:22:30 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:22:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: <013001d659f5$35eb7010$a1c25030$@rainier66.com> References: <00c601d659de$b2b29c70$1817d550$@rainier66.com> <013001d659f5$35eb7010$a1c25030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Actually, I am a big fan of hogs. In my grad physiology class my lab partner and I took out a pig's brain. It is a marvel of convolutions. If you took a picture and did not get any perspective, you would assume it was human. Why Mother Nature chose to give pigs such a big brain is probably not known, but they are said to be smarter than dogs and only a bit less than monkeys. How we know this is a problem, since they resist learning anything we try to teach them. Stubborn as mules (who are really not stubborn at all - ask me if you don't know why). bill w On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:12 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Blueskins > > > > I have a suggestion?: Pigskins. bill w > > > > > > Speciesist! Next thing ya know, they will be promoting human supremacy! > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 16:27:22 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 12:27:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: There are a lot of mandated CV-19 requirements right now that likely would not stand up if challenged in court. NY is forcing incoming domestic air travelers to fill out a detailed questionnaire upon disembarking with a fine of $2000 for non-compliance. That's just one recent example. Abolishing the freedom to worship is another. I'm sure there are many more egregious ones as well. This is still a free country in theory last time I checked. On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 12:18 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics > > > > >?Our Mississippi governor has finally seen the light. Not wearing one > for months and not mandating it for anyone, he finally issued the order, > which he says has no real legal stance? bill w > > > > > > The governor has no legal authority to order civilians to wear anything. > He is telling the truth. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Tue Jul 14 16:30:16 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:30:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 14/07/2020 04:59, Keith Henson wrote: > The foofarah over the name of a certain baseball team I find to be > silly, but if they feel political correctness forces them to change > the name I suggest "Blueskins" as a reference (sort of uncertain) to > the Picts painting themselves with Woad. Woad would become the > official team color. i should think many more people nowadays would immediately think of the Na'avi from Avatar (or even the Andorians from Star Trek), rather than woad-covered Picts, when they see the word "Blueskins". The Na'avi were good basketball players. Something to do with being 9 feet tall, I suspect. I bet they'd be good at baseball too. -- Ben Zaiboc From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 16:33:01 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:33:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] beating up education again Message-ID: Dutton also ran a Bad Writing Contest that lampooned ?the most egregious examples of awkward, jargon-clogged academic prose? produced in any particular year. (Sadly, this competition ? to borrow a phrase from one of its winners ? now has an ?absentation of actuality?. That is, it no longer exists.) Here is a winner: one year?s 94-word single sentence winning entry , ?To ask what [it] means is to miss the point. [It] beats readers into submission and instructs them that they are in the presence of a great and deep mind. Actual communication has nothing to do with it.? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 16:40:21 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:40:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: dylan wrote - Abolishing the freedom to worship is another. I'm sure there are many more egregious ones as well. This is still a free country in theory last time I checked. Once upon a time prayer in schools was a big issue - remember that? They didn't get what they wanted out of the Supreme Court, who maintained that prayer was certainly not prohibited. Anyone could pray all they wanted to - just not out loud at a school function. Churches are now told not to hold meetings. That does not prohibit them from having online services or anything else except large meetings of people. And in fact no church meetings have been broken up (have they?) or anyone arrested for meeting (same Q). bill w On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:31 AM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > There are a lot of mandated CV-19 requirements right now that likely would > not stand up if challenged in court. NY is forcing incoming domestic air > travelers to fill out a detailed questionnaire upon disembarking with a > fine of $2000 for non-compliance. That's just one recent example. > Abolishing the freedom to worship is another. I'm sure there are many more > egregious ones as well. This is still a free country in theory last time I > checked. > > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 12:18 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf >> Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics >> >> >> >> >?Our Mississippi governor has finally seen the light. Not wearing one >> for months and not mandating it for anyone, he finally issued the order, >> which he says has no real legal stance? bill w >> >> >> >> >> >> The governor has no legal authority to order civilians to wear anything. >> He is telling the truth. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 16:50:46 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:50:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: References: <00c601d659de$b2b29c70$1817d550$@rainier66.com> <013001d659f5$35eb7010$a1c25030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <016601d659fe$ebd294e0$c377bea0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Blueskins Actually, I am a big fan of hogs. In my grad physiology class my lab partner and I took out a pig's brain. It is a marvel of convolutions. If you took a picture and did not get any perspective, you would assume it was human. Why Mother Nature chose to give pigs such a big brain is probably not known, but they are said to be smarter than dogs and only a bit less than monkeys. How we know this is a problem, since they resist learning anything we try to teach them. Stubborn as mules (who are really not stubborn at all - ask me if you don't know why). bill w I already know why mules are not really stubborn. I have an explanation which I will offer but I want to hear yours first. I too am a big fan of hogs. The heavy lifting in red meat has always been cows, but hogs can produce meat for about a third of the price. Nutritionally pork is nearly equivalent to beef. Measuring the intelligence of a hog is inherently difficult as it is with chimps: in both cases they are examples of species which really just don?t like humans and they don?t like to play our games. In the case of chimps I kinda understand it: they are revolted by how much we look like deformed chimps. They have a kind of uncanny valley thing going on, vaguely wondering perhaps if we are not really chimps, but something went wrong and we have these ugly bulbous heads and we managed to breed anyway even though it isn?t clear how we could find each other attractive. Of course all this is written from the perspective of a human supremist. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 16:52:25 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:52:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] comments? Message-ID: Indeed, in his seminal The Mating Mind (2000), Miller argues that the human brain itself is primarily a product of sexual rather than natural selection: ?an entertainment system? designed principally to stimulate and attract other brains; in other words, the idea that our incredible cognitive abilities have evolved, ?like the peacock?s tail, for courtship and mating?. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 16:57:04 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 12:57:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: As an atheist, I don't have a dog in the fight on anything other than principles, but yes, there has been friction between churches attempting to hold a physical service even with social distancing involved. Chicago is one example of this if you do some googling. There are others. I don't know if anyone has actually been arrested over it. I find it interesting that BLM marches are fine and no threat to the public health as far as government officials in supportive municipalities are concerned, but anything they're not a fan of does not get the same treatment. That idiot DiBlasio believes social justice is a larger concern than public health but does not apply the same rubric to churches (or businesses): https://www.foxnews.com/us/nyc-black-lives-matter-marches-can-continue-despite-large-event-ban-de-blasio-says On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 12:48 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > dylan wrote - Abolishing the freedom to worship is another. I'm sure > there are many more egregious ones as well. This is still a free country > in theory last time I checked. > > Once upon a time prayer in schools was a big issue - remember that? They > didn't get what they wanted out of the Supreme Court, who maintained that > prayer was certainly not prohibited. Anyone could pray all they wanted to - > just not out loud at a school function. Churches are now told not to hold > meetings. That does not prohibit them from having online services or > anything else except large meetings of people. And in fact no church > meetings have been broken up (have they?) or anyone arrested for meeting > (same Q). bill w > > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:31 AM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> There are a lot of mandated CV-19 requirements right now that likely >> would not stand up if challenged in court. NY is forcing incoming domestic >> air travelers to fill out a detailed questionnaire upon disembarking with a >> fine of $2000 for non-compliance. That's just one recent example. >> Abolishing the freedom to worship is another. I'm sure there are many more >> egregious ones as well. This is still a free country in theory last time I >> checked. >> >> On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 12:18 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* extropy-chat *On >>> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics >>> >>> >>> >>> >?Our Mississippi governor has finally seen the light. Not wearing one >>> for months and not mandating it for anyone, he finally issued the order, >>> which he says has no real legal stance? bill w >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> The governor has no legal authority to order civilians to wear >>> anything. He is telling the truth. >>> >>> >>> >>> 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 >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 17:08:07 2020 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:08:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] comments? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Indeed. Looked at on a geological timescale, the size of the hominid braincase at birth basically inflated like a balloon, incredibly quickly, right up to the point where it started to cause non-trivial infant mortality increases. It has all the hallmarks of the same kind of "arms-race" sexual-selection-based positive feedback loops that created other ridiculously outsized anatomical features in other species, just like peacock tails. If you didn't have to squeeze a baby head through a female pelvis, it'd still be happening. Inducing a positive feedback loop in the general computing capability of a species seems like a ridiculously transformative thing to do to a universe, though if a Sysop wanted to "create" sentient life whilst maintaining plausible deniability, that'd be an extremely clever way to do it. On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:01 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Indeed, in his seminal The Mating Mind > (2000), Miller argues that > the human brain itself is primarily a product of sexual rather than natural > selection: ?an entertainment system? designed principally to stimulate and > attract other brains; in other words, the idea that our incredible > cognitive abilities have evolved, ?like the peacock?s tail, for courtship > and mating?. > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 17:11:02 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 10:11:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >?And in fact no church meetings have been broken up (have they?) or anyone arrested for meeting (same Q). bill w What if? a church meeting were to be broken up and people arrested? Then we would be in a situation where people can riot, loot and burn without consequences, but cannot meet to pray to their favorite deity. Those of you who know of apocalyptic thought: this is exactly what they have been teaching will happen just before their favorite deity returns from wherever she has been visiting the wicked with burning wrath and saving the faithful. It would boost those extremists notions like nothing we have ever seen. It would invite the obvious strategy: just carry protest signs to church. Or get a pile of trash and firewood out front, set it on fire and claim that it is a riot, therefore legal. Our legal system would be releasing actual convicted rapists and murderers to make space in prison for? churchgoers. Honest to evolution, American government power has its inherent limits at all levels, for a good reason. We are not subjects of the king. We are not servants of the government. We are free people. If another country is reporting a lower covid rate because they have the authority to order the people to do this or that, Americans are still a free people. If we hand the government dictatorial powers in order to save us from covid, we have a lot bigger problems than covid. American who covet the power that other governments have, most Americans have the option to immigrate to those countries and revel in their newfound serfdom. I choose freedom. I choose a form of government which limits its own power. I choose self-reliance, responsibility and accountability for my actions. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 17:11:21 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 12:11:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Blueskins In-Reply-To: <016601d659fe$ebd294e0$c377bea0$@rainier66.com> References: <00c601d659de$b2b29c70$1817d550$@rainier66.com> <013001d659f5$35eb7010$a1c25030$@rainier66.com> <016601d659fe$ebd294e0$c377bea0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I scorned much of what I learned in grad school. My profs were hard line radical behaviorists and mind and emotion and such were never mentioned. Lots about rats, though. I was tickled to death to read later that experiments with wild rats, trying to replicate studies with white lab rats, showed that there were large differences in the two sets of data. If you cannot generalize between two types of rats, what good is that data for people? For rats, OK, but we are not in the biology business. Facts on which I base my mule argument: horses can be whipped into running or working themselves to death. Mules, no. When a mule is tired, it will just stand there and let itself be whipped until it is not longer in danger from overwork. Donkey's, burros, ditto. Back to rats: I have wondered if, instead of using chimpanzees, who are as we all know our closest genetic relatives, we used bonobos, an ape with a very different personality. No, I have not Googled that. >From pigs' point of view humans are a terrible idea. Pigs supply more meat to us than any other animal. Now what if an intelligent alien species were to invade and take over. Of what use would humans be? Perhaps food (as in the Man-Kzin series by Larry Niven and others). bill w On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:55 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Blueskins > > > > Actually, I am a big fan of hogs. In my grad physiology class my lab > partner and I took out a pig's brain. It is a marvel of convolutions. If > you took a picture and did not get any perspective, you would assume it was > human. Why Mother Nature chose to give pigs such a big brain is probably > not known, but they are said to be smarter than dogs and only a bit less > than monkeys. How we know this is a problem, since they resist learning > anything we try to teach them. Stubborn as mules (who are really not > stubborn at all - ask me if you don't know why). bill w > > > > > > > > I already know why mules are not really stubborn. I have an explanation > which I will offer but I want to hear yours first. > > > > I too am a big fan of hogs. The heavy lifting in red meat has always been > cows, but hogs can produce meat for about a third of the price. > Nutritionally pork is nearly equivalent to beef. > > > > Measuring the intelligence of a hog is inherently difficult as it is with > chimps: in both cases they are examples of species which really just don?t > like humans and they don?t like to play our games. In the case of chimps I > kinda understand it: they are revolted by how much we look like deformed > chimps. They have a kind of uncanny valley thing going on, vaguely > wondering perhaps if we are not really chimps, but something went wrong and > we have these ugly bulbous heads and we managed to breed anyway even though > it isn?t clear how we could find each other attractive. Of course all this > is written from the perspective of a human supremist. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 17:18:37 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 12:18:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] want to get your body moving? Message-ID: https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/born-in-havana-rondo-alla-mambo-french-horn-flashmob/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 17:24:35 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 10:24:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] comments? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002601d65a03$a54f7ce0$efee76a0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Darin Sunley via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] comments? >?Indeed. Looked at on a geological timescale, the size of the hominid braincase at birth basically inflated like a balloon, incredibly quickly, right up to the point where it started to cause non-trivial infant mortality increases. >?It has all the hallmarks of the same kind of "arms-race" sexual-selection-based positive feedback loops that created other ridiculously outsized anatomical features in other species, just like peacock tails. >?If you didn't have to squeeze a baby head through a female pelvis, it'd still be happening? Hi Darin, this is the cool thing: our bulbous heads have enabled two enabling technologies: surgical births and the ability to produce sufficient food to supply our enormous brains. We have removed the two bottlenecks to our progress. If our heads stopped their ballooning inflation for a couple million years, that process is now ready to resume on our way to becoming the Star Trek Talos people who rebuilt Pike and Vena. I wanna become the Talos people. That looks so cool to me. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 17:40:33 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 13:40:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:12 AM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> This is meaningless nonsense.* > Right. So the moral to take away from all this is that if statistics or even reality conflicts with your worldview then deny the statistics and if necessary reality itself, but never EVER change your worldview because political ideology is more important than the scientific method. A wise president should ignore what every virus expert and Epidemiologist on the planet is saying because they're just a bunch of nerds and he should instead just listen to people who engage in happy talk that he enjoys hearing. I'm sure following that strategy will bring the country's death rate way down, after all ignoring facts that are staring you in the face has always worked great in the past. Right? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 17:42:02 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:42:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] want to get your body moving? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm moving. Thanks. On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:32 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/born-in-havana-rondo-alla-mambo-french-horn-flashmob/ > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 18:00:18 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 14:00:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 1:18 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *If another country is reporting a lower covid rate because they have the > authority to order the people to do this or that, Americans are still a > free people. If we hand the government dictatorial powers in order to save > us from covid, we have a lot bigger problems than covid.* [...] And every other country in the world, aka every country that has handled this crises better than the US, is a dictatorship just like North Korea. There is nothing we can learn from them because Americans are the only free people on earth. Right? > [...] *we have a lot bigger problems than covid.* A bigger problem than death? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 18:17:52 2020 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 12:17:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There are significant structural and logical problems with the statistics, which I listed in the charitable hope you would engage with them. Instead, you went immediately to argument from authority, ad hominem, and tu quoque. Precisely one person in this conversation is letting ideology override a reasonable assessment of reality, and it isn't me. You used to be better than this. On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:44 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:12 AM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *> This is meaningless nonsense.* >> > > Right. So the moral to take away from all this is that if statistics or > even reality conflicts with your worldview then deny the statistics and if > necessary reality itself, but never EVER change your worldview because > political ideology is more important than the scientific method. A wise > president should ignore what every virus expert and Epidemiologist on the > planet is saying because they're just a bunch of nerds and he should > instead just listen to people who engage in happy talk that he enjoys > hearing. I'm sure following that strategy will bring the country's death > rate way down, after all ignoring facts that are staring you in the face > has always worked great in the past. Right? > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 18:32:42 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 13:32:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <88151619-B487-444E-8124-013C42A43467@gmail.com> People keep whining, ?OMG the protestors! Why will not one say anything about the protestors? Why will no one do anything about the protestors?? First of all: EVERYONE is saying something about the protestors. Literally everyone. People talk about it constantly. Secondly: There is nothing they CAN do about protestors. The more violence or threat of violence you put against them, the more likely that peotests turn into full-blown rioting, and the longer actual rioting will continue once it has begun. No no, there is nothing productive to do with the protests except ignore them, from a public health standpoint. And encourage social distancing and mask wearing. From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 19:03:19 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 12:03:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 1:18 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >>? If another country is reporting a lower covid rate because they have the authority to order the people to do this or that, Americans are still a free people. If we hand the government dictatorial powers in order to save us from covid, we have a lot bigger problems than covid. [...] >?And every other country in the world, aka every country that has handled this crises better than the US, is a dictatorship just like North Korea. There is nothing we can learn from them because Americans are the only free people on earth. Right? Oh there is something we can learn from them: if you accept dictatorship, your covid death rate will be whatever the dictator says it is. We get to die of government abuse of power rather than covid. There are no masks which stop a dictator. I?ll taaaaake? Freedom, forever please Alex. > [...] we have a lot bigger problems than covid. >?A bigger problem than death? John K Clark Giving government more power doesn?t reduce death, it increases it. To government professionals, power is currency. As soon as we reward bad performance with more power, the result is more bad performance and more demands for more power. John, you are one who argues the government failed, then argue for more government. Giving the government more power is more death than covid. Keep this in mind: no one has offered a believable scenario for what happens if we pile on more power and responsibility to government but it has insufficient funds to carry out even what it did before. You suggested just printing more money, but you offer no indication of understanding of what happens in countries where that has been done. Weimar Germany, repeatedly in South American and central American countries: they printed a bunch of phony money, the result was predictable and horrifying: it robs those whose savings and pensions are in the form of US currency. The rich do not hold their wealth in currency, the poor do. John, I will again offer you a chance to suggest how government (at all levels) will even maintain the services it has already been doing, in the face of severely declining revenue (at all levels.) Previously you suggested printing more money, which only is even theoretically possible at the Federal level. John I think you may be the only one here who believes that idea of printing our way out of the hole is feasible. Do you want to try again to sell that notion? If you wish, I can offer stories from a brother-in-law who did mission work in South America when that government was printing money without backing. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 19:18:57 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 15:18:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 2:19 PM Darin Sunley wrote: *> you went immediately to argument from authority* That's not always a bad thing, especially when it comes to medicine. Nobody can be knowledgeable about everything, so if every expert specialist in the world on a very complicated subject like epidemiology, agrees on something, people who have spent their life studying the subject, then I think they are much more likely to be correct then you or I are after we've only been studying the matter for 20 minutes or so. That's why people read scientific journals and believe that what they say is probably true even if they haven't personally carried out the experiments described in them. People that we trust, because they have proven to be right in the past, judge new research and if they think it's not valid they don't publish it in their journals and if they think it is valid then they do. It's a web of trust, it's what the cryptographic program PGP uses to ensure that a public key really belongs to the person that it claims to. And by the way, I don't think Trump has even spent 20 minutes studying viral epidemiology or Statistical theory in his entire life. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 19:34:44 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 15:34:44 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 3:05 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >>?And every other country in the world, aka every country that has >> handled this crises better than the US, is a dictatorship just like North >> Korea. There is nothing we can learn from them because Americans are the >> only free people on earth. Right? > > > > *> Oh there is something we can learn from them: if you accept > dictatorship, your covid death rate will be whatever the dictator says it > is. * > Do you really believe every epidemiologist in the world is lying and every country except the USA is a dictatorship just like North Korea? *> Keep this in mind: no one has offered a believable scenario for what > happens if we pile on more power and responsibility to government but it > has insufficient funds to carry out even what it did before. You suggested > just printing more money, but* [...] We could be having this exact same conversation in 1935. And we could be having this exact same conversation in 1835 too. Spike, you say you love the constitution, but if you hated it and wanted it destroyed utterly but we're too squeamish to use H bombs then you could not do better than to drastically cut government spending during 2 simultaneous disasters, the worst unemployment since the great depression of 1929 and the worst pandemic since 1918. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 20:30:25 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 13:30:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat > Oh there is something we can learn from them: if you accept dictatorship, your covid death rate will be whatever the dictator says it is. >?Do you really believe every epidemiologist in the world is lying and every country except the USA is a dictatorship just like North Korea? We don?t know what the covid rate is in any communist country. The governments there control information. In the US, we incentivize hospitals to over-report covid cases. Over time, we have more and more people who caught covid and recovered, or were exposed and their immune systems responded. Those people have covid antibodies which can be measured. If they end up in the hands of the coroner, the corpses are tested for covid antibodies. If positive, the coroner might report that as a cause of death, even if there were plenty of other factors. Covid deaths get the hospital paid. Otherwise probably not. Fill in the blanks. >? Spike, you say you love the constitution? Right on! >? drastically cut government spending during 2 simultaneous disasters? John K Clark I get that. But the government cannot manufacture wealth. It can manufacture money. Two different things. Government overspending causes cuts eventually. They are not voluntary cuts. In our current catastrophe, government revenues are going to be way down, waaaaay down, while costs go up. This will cause governments at all levels to come up short. States can raise income taxes (and likely will) they can raise sales taxes (they will) and to some extent they can raise property taxes (California will not (because it requires a constitutional amendment (which would require 2/3 of the legislature to agree (which they will not (particularly when record numbers are begging the state government for relief on current tax bills.)))) States can borrow, if investors are willing to take a risk, but their reach is limited. We can argue the government can spin out a pile of phony money. But if they do, we now have runaway prices on any imported goods, and a whole new world of hurt. States can do the things I listed above, and probably will. Counties and cities, well, good luck to them. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 21:13:55 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 14:13:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ep thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Playing fetch is something most but not all dogs do. In particular, Chows just will not play fetch. It *might* be possible to locate the genes in dogs that give them this behavior by comparing the ones who will play fetch with the ones who will not. Keith On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 9:47 AM Keith Henson wrote: > > Dave Sill wrote: > > snip > > > This has been bugging me: how do you know that? How do you experimentally verify any evolutionary psychology theories? > > For the most part, you don't. It's theory, models, and logic. Not > all science is experimental, for example astronomy. > > EP theory is dead simple. It's just the recognition that biological > evolution applies to behavior as well as physical structure. Do you > feel uneasy walking close to the edge of a clift and move back from > the edge? Where else but genes could that behavior ultimately come > from? > > Eventually we will be able to trace behavior, such as seen in > capture-bonding to the specific brain circuits and from there to the > genes involved in building those brain circuits. > > For the cited, > > >> War mode can be kept from developing by keeping the income per capita > >> stable or slowly rising. > > There are lots of examples where people went to war or similar kinds > of social disruption when things were looking bleak. Can you think of > a case where a group of people with a bright future outlook went to > war? > > Keith From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 21:28:28 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 14:28:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011c01d65a25$b7b6ab20$27240160$@rainier66.com> At some point this notion is plausible: It?s a tough pill to swallow, but at the rate we?re going the death toll from the virus itself is going to pale in comparison to the death toll of the measures taken to prevent it. The lockdowns are stifling regular healthcare, killing jobs and leading to catastrophic effects. ? Dr. David Samadi (@drdavidsamadi) July 14, 2020 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 22:00:53 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:00:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] trivia Message-ID: Fort Knox has about 46 metric tons of gold, valued at about 230 billion dollars. A drop in the bucket, eh? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 14 22:32:38 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2020 15:32:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] trivia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <016901d65a2e$ae1c3d10$0a54b730$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] trivia Fort Knox has about 46 metric tons of gold, valued at about 230 billion dollars. A drop in the bucket, eh? bill w I have long advocated making up the Federal budget deficit by selling the gold in Fort Knox. That would enable savings in guarding the place and the proceeds alone could cover the budget deficit, balancing the budget for several months. The value of the gold in Fort Knox could nearly cover the cost of the proposed basic assured income for a month. All it would take is that gold in Fort Knox, and we get almost an entire month of basic income. Such a deal! However? with the current exchange rate, the Ft. Knox gold is worth about 6 billion dollars, which would cover the interest on the current Federal debt for nearly a week. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 12:03:17 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 08:03:17 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 4:32 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>?Do you really believe every epidemiologist in the world is lying and >> every country except the USA is a dictatorship just like North Korea? > > > *> We don?t know what the covid rate is in any communist country. * > That doesn't answer my question. Do you claim we don't know the Covid-19 rate in *ANY* country, and EVERY epidemiologist in the world is lying, and EVERY scientific journal article about the virus is wrong, and there is NO accurate data about the virus at all? Do you think the virus is even real or is it all just a gigantic worldwide hoax designed to make the USA look bad? Or do you think that maybe just maybe your worldview needs some minor revisions? Maybe just maybe the USA is not always the best at everything and in this emergency it has acted with massive breathtaking incompetence that has caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths and Trillions of dollars of unnecessary economic damage. > > *But the government cannot manufacture wealth. It can manufacture > money. Two different things.* Your timing is dreadful! You'd have to go back about 90 years to find a time when inflation was a less serious problem than it is right now, massive deflation is what you have to worry about right now and that is just as bad as massive inflation. You only get inflation when factories are running at full capacity yet can't keep up with demand because demand is so large, but right now factories are running at very low capacity and demand is way way down, nobody is in the mood to buy a lot of stuff or to travel to a lot of places, not even to their neighborhood bar. There might come a time in the future when inflation becomes a problem, but now is not that time; If you find a man dying from thirst in a desert you solve the immediate problem by giving him a sip of water from your small canteen, it's just not the right time to worry that an ocean of water could drown a Human being. *> Government overspending causes cuts eventually.* When does this "eventually" actually happen? People have been predicting it since 1835 and we're still waiting. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 12:22:50 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 08:22:50 -0400 Subject: [ExI] trivia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 6:03 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Fort Knox has about 46 metric tons of gold, valued at about 230 billion > dollars. > That's nothing, in a vault 80 feet below the streets of Manhattan under the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at 33 Liberty Street there are 6,170 tons of gold, although much of it belongs to other countries, the USA is just keeping it safe for them. At its peak in 1973 that vault contained over 12,000 tons of gold, but it's still the largest deposit of gold in the world. 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URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 15 13:26:31 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 06:26:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000e01d65aab$8deaefa0$a9c0cee0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 5:03 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 4:32 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >>?Do you really believe every epidemiologist in the world is lying and every country except the USA is a dictatorship just like North Korea? > We don?t know what the covid rate is in any communist country. That doesn't answer my question. Do you claim we don't know the Covid-19 rate in ANY country? That?s right. In any country which controls information, their rate is whatever it says it is. China started right out with a world-killing lie. We don?t trust them. In the USA, we incentivize our hospitals to over-report. We still do that. Over time more and more people catch covid, get sick, recover, go on with their lives, something unrelated happens, they still have the anitbodies, the hospitals get to report that as a covid death, they get paid. Over time, more and more people stay away from their doctors and hospitals for good reason, this causes something else to go wrong, they die, we don?t know how to count that. >? and EVERY epidemiologist in the world is lying? They must use the same data we do. >?and EVERY scientific journal article about the virus is wrong, and there is NO accurate data about the virus at all? We don?t know how accurate the data is. Do you? How? >?Do you think the virus is even real or is it all just a gigantic worldwide hoax designed to make the USA look bad? John, the virus doesn?t make the USA look bad. It makes China look bad. You try to make the USA look bad. Two different things. For handling of the virus, the USA looks like other comparable countries. The comparable ones are those with a similar level of international travel and a similar infrastructure. >?Or do you think that maybe just maybe your worldview needs some minor revisions? Maybe just maybe the USA is not always the best at everything and in this emergency it has acted with massive breathtaking incompetence? Not all of them. Wyoming and Hawaii have done a great job. New York and New Jersey were epic fails. > But the government cannot manufacture wealth. It can manufacture money. Two different things. >?Your timing is dreadful! Timing is irrelevant. The government has never been able to manufacture wealth. John you should talk to someone who traveled in South America during a time when their governments failed and resorted to manufacturing money. The merchants would remove the price tags, and trade in American currency because they knew what it was worth. They didn?t know what the prices were in their own national currency because they hadn?t heard what their government was claiming it was worth that day. Timing has nothing to do with it. We already know what happens when governments manufacture money without backing: we can?t manufacture wheelbarrows fast enough. The biggest financial crises will be at the state level. States have not the option of printing money. They can borrow of course, just as the Federal government does, and they will, but investors might not line up to buy those bonds. Counties, cities and school districts are facing budget shortfalls too. They have even fewer options, but our city council voted last week to put a quarter cent sales tax on the November ballot, while announcing a temporary hold on some infrastructure. One way or another, government will need to be cut deeply at every level. There is no magic act to make up the deficit. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 14:15:29 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 10:15:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <000e01d65aab$8deaefa0$a9c0cee0$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> <000e01d65aab$8deaefa0$a9c0cee0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 9:29 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >>?Do you really believe every epidemiologist in the world is lying and > every country except the USA is a dictatorship just like North Korea? > > *> **We don?t know what the covid rate is in any communist country. * > > >> That doesn't answer my question. Do you claim we don't know the >> Covid-19 rate in *ANY* country? > > > > > *That?s right. In any country which controls information, their rate is > whatever it says it is. * > You *STILL* haven't answered my question! Do you think ANY country does NOT have control over scientific data, or do you only believe in things that do not require even the slightest change to your worldview? > *> China started right out with a world-killing lie. * > Yes China did tell a lie at the start of the pandemic, but that lie didn't kill any Americans. Doctors and nurses reported that there was a shortage of cheap virus protection masks in the US way back in February, and they're STILL reporting a shortage of them to this very day. If The president can't even solve that simple problem after 5 months do you really think an extra three weeks of warning time would have made the slightest difference? >? and EVERY epidemiologist in the world is lying? > > > > *>They must use the same data we do.* > And you're the only one able to figure out that all the scientific data about the virus is completely phoney, not one of the world's epidemiologists is smart enough to do what you did. > *> government will need to be cut deeply at every level. * > Great idea if your goal is to destroy the constitution, because no society can long remain free if people are dying in the streets from hunger or disease, and if we followed your advice both things would happen . *> There is no magic act to make up the deficit.* > As people were saying in 1835, and in 1935, and they continue to say it today. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 15 15:29:00 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 08:29:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> <000e01d65aab$8deaefa0$a9c0cee0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004601d65abc$aa6add50$ff4097f0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 9:29 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >>?Do you really believe every epidemiologist in the world is lying and every country except the USA is a dictatorship just like North Korea? > We don?t know what the covid rate is in any communist country. >> That doesn't answer my question. Do you claim we don't know the Covid-19 rate in ANY country? > That?s right. In any country which controls information, their rate is whatever it says it is. >?You STILL haven't answered my question! Do you think ANY country does NOT have control over scientific data, or do you only believe in things that do not require even the slightest change to your worldview? In China and North Korea, the government controls the narrative. They threaten or eliminate dissenters. There is a Chinese doctor hiding in America right now who has a story to tell: Li-Meng Yan. Listen to what she said about how the pandemic started. > China started right out with a world-killing lie. >?Yes China did tell a lie at the start of the pandemic, but that lie didn't kill any Americans? On the contrary. The blame is on China for taking inadequate precautions to contain the virus. Because of their early coverup, we still don?t know for sure if it started in the wet market or the lab, but plenty of us think it was in the lab. The USA was one of the first countries to react, by restricting travel from China, but by then it was already too late: it had spread into Italy and UK, and from there it could not be stopped. >?Doctors and nurses reported that there was a shortage of cheap virus protection masks in the US way back in February, and they're STILL reporting a shortage of them to this very day. If The president can't even solve that simple problem after 5 months do you really think an extra three weeks of warning time would have made the slightest difference?... Presidents don?t control that process. Hospital supply departments do. When you hand all this responsibility to a president when he doesn?t have the authority, you are merely campaigning. The next POTUS and the ones after that will not have the authority over hospital supply either, because the Fed doesn?t own hospitals. >?And you're the only one able to figure out that all the scientific data about the virus is completely phoney, not one of the world's epidemiologists is smart enough to do what you did? I am not claiming the data is phony. I only claim we don?t know how accurate it is, which is freely admitted by epidemiologists. We know that different countries count them differently, which is something we hear a lot from Belgium, which is the hardest-hit country in the world in fatalities per capita (second hardest if we count San Marino with its small population.) Belgium has suffered twice as many deaths per capita as the USA, but they point out that they count them differently from other neighboring countries: they include unproven cases, as the USA does. There are differences in the way these are counted, we get that. We know that covid deaths are more common with people who have other things wrong with them, such as? a massive stroke or heart attack. If we incentivize hospitals to report those as covid deaths, they will. We do. > government will need to be cut deeply at every level. >?Great idea? It isn?t an idea John. We are forced to it because of revenue shortfall. There really are no magic solutions to sudden unexpected revenue shortfall other than to keep asking for more loans. State governments have more options: they can raise property taxes. Good chance many of them will. They can raise sales taxes and fuel taxes. They will. >? because no society can long remain free if people are dying in the streets from hunger or disease, and if we followed your advice both things would happen? A revenue shortfall isn?t my advice John. It is reality. There are no magic solutions to that. > There is no magic act to make up the deficit. >?As people were saying in 1835, and in 1935, and they continue to say it today. John K Clark It is still true. There is no magic act to make up the deficit. They can continue to borrow only as long as lenders keep lining up. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 16:33:12 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2020 02:33:12 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Jul 2020 at 03:17, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > >?And in fact no church meetings have been broken up (have they?) or > anyone arrested for meeting (same Q). bill w > > > > > > What if? a church meeting were to be broken up and people arrested? Then > we would be in a situation where people can riot, loot and burn without > consequences, but cannot meet to pray to their favorite deity. > > > > Those of you who know of apocalyptic thought: this is exactly what they > have been teaching will happen just before their favorite deity returns > from wherever she has been visiting the wicked with burning wrath and > saving the faithful. It would boost those extremists notions like nothing > we have ever seen. It would invite the obvious strategy: just carry > protest signs to church. Or get a pile of trash and firewood out front, > set it on fire and claim that it is a riot, therefore legal. Our legal > system would be releasing actual convicted rapists and murderers to make > space in prison for? churchgoers. > > > > Honest to evolution, American government power has its inherent limits at > all levels, for a good reason. We are not subjects of the king. We are > not servants of the government. We are free people. If another country is > reporting a lower covid rate because they have the authority to order the > people to do this or that, Americans are still a free people. > > > > If we hand the government dictatorial powers in order to save us from > covid, we have a lot bigger problems than covid. American who covet the > power that other governments have, most Americans have the option to > immigrate to those countries and revel in their newfound serfdom. I choose > freedom. I choose a form of government which limits its own power. I > choose self-reliance, responsibility and accountability for my actions. > Are you opposed to other rules designed to protect people, like obeying traffic lights? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 15 16:48:03 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:48:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat If we hand the government dictatorial powers in order to save us from covid, we have a lot bigger problems than covid. American who covet the power that other governments have, most Americans have the option to immigrate to those countries and revel in their newfound serfdom. I choose freedom. I choose a form of government which limits its own power. I choose self-reliance, responsibility and accountability for my actions. >.?.Are you opposed to other rules designed to protect people, like obeying traffic lights? -- Stathis Papaioannou Not at all. I am opposed to handing Federal government dictatorial powers when it cannot or will not even balance its own budget during full prosperity and peacetime. If states want to do make rules on giving themselves the authority to make people wear masks and so on, then states need to write that into their constitutions and have their legislatures vote on them. None of that has happened. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tara at taramayastales.com Wed Jul 15 16:45:03 2020 From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:45:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <6594B651-5529-45C7-BD3D-0421911C08DF@taramayastales.com> > On Jul 15, 2020, at 9:33 AM, Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat wrote: > > Are you opposed to other rules designed to protect people, like obeying traffic lights? If you can?t see the difference between obeying traffic lights and being under house arrest, your children forbidden to go to school to see their friends, or get swimming lessons, or play sports, or go to church or meet with ten other people in person to discuss what government overreach looks like?. well, I would say you?re an idiot, but I know you are not an idiot, and I know you can tell the difference. So I must assume freedom is just not that important to you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 17:16:00 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 12:16:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Conservative libertarians - there seems to be quite a few of these. Big article in the paper today about a man who ran for governor, and lost, and who owns a restaurant. He claims that the governor is trying to make everybody wear a mask and he says that nobody can make him wear one, and so on. Apparently these people think that freedom in America means that you can do whatever you want to do, regardless. Same people who rave over seatbelts. You can tell them (I have tried) that when an accident occurs where there are more injuries and fatalities, it costs the people more money to deal with them. Runs up everyone's insurance costs. That is their right, they say. Pig-headed. I know that some of you are probably conservative libertarians and think these people are giving you a bad name. Do you? I say that doing things to spite other people is extremely stupid (not the same as unintelligent), and doing things despite the harm it does to society, are not in the spirit of the Golden Rule or any or moral principle I can think of. Freedoms come with a price. You may have to lose some of them to benefit others. bill w On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 11:50 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > If we hand the government dictatorial powers in order to save us from > covid, we have a lot bigger problems than covid. American who covet the > power that other governments have, most Americans have the option to > immigrate to those countries and revel in their newfound serfdom. I choose > freedom. I choose a form of government which limits its own power. I > choose self-reliance, responsibility and accountability for my actions. > > > > >.?.Are you opposed to other rules designed to protect people, like > obeying traffic lights? > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > Not at all. I am opposed to handing Federal government dictatorial powers > when it cannot or will not even balance its own budget during full > prosperity and peacetime. > > > > If states want to do make rules on giving themselves the authority to make > people wear masks and so on, then states need to write that into their > constitutions and have their legislatures vote on them. None of that has > happened. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 17:49:15 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2020 03:49:15 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <6594B651-5529-45C7-BD3D-0421911C08DF@taramayastales.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <6594B651-5529-45C7-BD3D-0421911C08DF@taramayastales.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 at 03:11, Tara Maya via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Jul 15, 2020, at 9:33 AM, Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Are you opposed to other rules designed to protect people, like obeying > traffic lights? > > > > > If you can?t see the difference between obeying traffic lights and being > under house arrest, your children forbidden to go to school to see their > friends, or get swimming lessons, or play sports, or go to church or meet > with ten other people in person to discuss what government overreach looks > like?. > well, I would say you?re an idiot, but I know you are not an idiot, and I > know you can tell the difference. So I must assume freedom is just not that > important to you. > The principle is the same. I want other people?s and, to be fair, my own freedom restricted if exercising that freedom is going to kill us. Of course, there should be a discussion about how this is done, and the speed limit might be set at 60 km/h rather than a safer 20 km/h, because the community believes it is OK to sacrifice some lives in order to get to places faster. A similar cost-benefit analysis needs to be done for public health matters. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 17:58:39 2020 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2020 03:58:39 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 at 02:49, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > If we hand the government dictatorial powers in order to save us from > covid, we have a lot bigger problems than covid. American who covet the > power that other governments have, most Americans have the option to > immigrate to those countries and revel in their newfound serfdom. I choose > freedom. I choose a form of government which limits its own power. I > choose self-reliance, responsibility and accountability for my actions. > > > > >.?.Are you opposed to other rules designed to protect people, like > obeying traffic lights? > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > Not at all. I am opposed to handing Federal government dictatorial powers > when it cannot or will not even balance its own budget during full > prosperity and peacetime. > > > > If states want to do make rules on giving themselves the authority to make > people wear masks and so on, then states need to write that into their > constitutions and have their legislatures vote on them. None of that has > happened. > I don?t know how your local laws work but I assume people can be fined by local authorities for relatively harmless things such as not picking up their dog?s poop, so why would fining people for not wearing a mask be more difficult to implement? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 15 18:18:27 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 11:18:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000001d65ad4$5640c420$02c24c60$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat If states want to do make rules on giving themselves the authority to make people wear masks and so on, then states need to write that into their constitutions and have their legislatures vote on them. None of that has happened. >?I don?t know how your local laws work but I assume people can be fined by local authorities for relatively harmless things such as not picking up their dog?s poop, so why would fining people for not wearing a mask be more difficult to implement? -- Stathis Papaioannou City governments do have a lot of leeway on what laws they pass. Ours never did. The state governor issue orders, but those do not apply to us unless there is an actual law that we are required to wear masks, which there are not. Meanwhile, I don?t bother blaming the California governor for his actions when he has insufficient authority to stop the surge in infections. Legislatures make law. Executive branches can only guide enforcement on how to enforce laws that exist. The Fed can declare martial law, which it has not done. The state can declare a public health emergency which enables the governor to direct some additional funding. Businesses can require patrons wear a mask, which they are doing. There is no known law or enforcement mechanism for the governor to require masks. Some do, some do not. Stathis the real point of all this is that we get it: face masks indoors makes sense. Handing government arbitrary power in response to a crisis does not. So we don?t. It really is that simple. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 15 18:26:11 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 11:26:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000701d65ad5$6acfb760$406f2620$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics >? Same people who rave over seatbelts. ? Freedoms come with a price. You may have to lose some of them to benefit others. bill w BillW, state legislatures mandated seat belts. Fair game. They established a legal means of enforcing it, perfectly fair. The state legislature has not mandated wearing masks. I see no indication that they are even trying to in California. Legislatures make law. The governor does not. POTUS does not. The executives cannot enforce a law that does not exist. So, pass a law. Wasn?t that simple? (Hint: no. (if congress attempted to pass a law requiring facemasks, it would be a 1000 pages (and legislators would be urging their colleagues to hurry and pass it so we could find out what is in it (which is exactly why there is no law requiring masks (aside: this same deadlock occurs in the California legislature even though it is functionally only one party.)))) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 19:28:34 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 14:28:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <000001d65ad4$5640c420$02c24c60$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> <000001d65ad4$5640c420$02c24c60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, what you are saying is simply not true. My state legislature (Texas) passed a law that says if there is a declared emergency, any executive order the governor makes, related to that emergency, has the full force of a law. Your state likely has a similar law. I checked, and in fact it does. > In turning to the statutes, we need to look at the California Emergency Services Act, which is found in the Government Code. Title 2 of the Government Code deals with the Government of the State of California. Division 1, Chapter 7 sets forth the California Emergency Services Act, which is found in Sections 8550 ? 8669.7. In addition, Article 3 of Chapter 7 provides for Powers of the Governor, which are contained in Sections 8565 ? 8899.72. Executive orders have the full force of law > 8567. (a) The Governor may make, amend, and rescind orders and regulations necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter. The orders and regulations shall have the force and effect of law. Due consideration shall be given to the plans of the federal government in preparing the orders and regulations. The Governor shall cause widespread publicity and notice to be given to all such orders and regulations, or amendments or rescissions thereof. When the emergency is over, the orders expire >(b) Orders and regulations, or amendments or rescissions thereof, issued during a state of war emergency or state of emergency shall be in writing and shall take effect immediately upon their issuance. Whenever the state of war emergency or state of emergency has been terminated, the orders and regulations shall be of no further force or effect. The governor can send the police to enforce his orders >8627. During a state of emergency the Governor shall, to the extent he deems necessary, have complete authority over all agencies of the state government and the right to exercise within the area designated all police power vested in the state by the Constitution and laws of the State of California in order to effectuate the purposes of this chapter. In exercise thereof, he shall promulgate, issue, and enforce such orders and regulations as he deems necessary, in accordance with the provisions of Section 8567. So in conclusion: >The Governor may make [...] regulations >The [...] regulations shall have the force and effect of law. >regulations, [...] shall take effect immediately upon their issuance. >Governor shall [...] have complete authority over all agencies of the state government and the right to exercise within the area designated all police power SR Ballard > On Jul 15, 2020, at 1:18 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > > > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > If states want to do make rules on giving themselves the authority to make people wear masks and so on, then states need to write that into their constitutions and have their legislatures vote on them. None of that has happened. > >?I don?t know how your local laws work but I assume people can be fined by local authorities for relatively harmless things such as not picking up their dog?s poop, so why would fining people for not wearing a mask be more difficult to implement? > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > City governments do have a lot of leeway on what laws they pass. Ours never did. The state governor issue orders, but those do not apply to us unless there is an actual law that we are required to wear masks, which there are not. Meanwhile, I don?t bother blaming the California governor for his actions when he has insufficient authority to stop the surge in infections. > > Legislatures make law. Executive branches can only guide enforcement on how to enforce laws that exist. The Fed can declare martial law, which it has not done. The state can declare a public health emergency which enables the governor to direct some additional funding. Businesses can require patrons wear a mask, which they are doing. There is no known law or enforcement mechanism for the governor to require masks. Some do, some do not. > > Stathis the real point of all this is that we get it: face masks indoors makes sense. Handing government arbitrary power in response to a crisis does not. So we don?t. It really is that simple. > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 19:38:41 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 15:38:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> <000001d65ad4$5640c420$02c24c60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: While you're correct, those are runarounds to allow legislating from the executive branch which is almost certainly unconstitutional when applied in such a carte blanche manner. It is certainly not in the spirit of the Constitution and the idea of separating the legislative and executive branches of government. On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 3:29 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Spike, what you are saying is simply not true. > > My state legislature (Texas) passed a law that says if there is a declared > emergency, any executive order the governor makes, related to that > emergency, has the full force of a law. > > Your state likely has a similar law. > > I checked, and in fact it does. > > > In turning to the statutes, we need to look at the California Emergency > Services Act, which is found in the Government Code. Title 2 of the > Government Code deals with the Government of the State of California. > Division 1, Chapter 7 sets forth the California Emergency Services Act, > which is found in Sections 8550 ? 8669.7. In addition, Article 3 of Chapter > 7 provides for Powers of the Governor, which are contained in Sections 8565 > ? 8899.72. > > Executive orders have the full force of law > > *8567. (a) The Governor may make, amend, and rescind orders and > regulations necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter. The > orders and regulations shall have the force and effect of law. Due > consideration shall be given to the plans of the federal government in > preparing the orders and regulations. The Governor shall cause widespread > publicity and notice to be given to all such orders and regulations, or > amendments or rescissions thereof.* > > When the emergency is over, the orders expire > >(b) Orders and regulations, or amendments or rescissions thereof, issued > during a state of war emergency or state of emergency shall be in writing > and shall take effect immediately upon their issuance. Whenever the state > of war emergency or state of emergency has been terminated, the orders and > regulations shall be of no further force or effect. > > The governor can send the police to enforce his orders > >*8627. During a state of emergency the Governor shall, to the extent he > deems necessary, have complete authority over all agencies of the state > government and the right to exercise within the area designated all police > power vested in the state by the Constitution and laws of the State of > California in order to effectuate the purposes of this chapter. In exercise > thereof, he shall promulgate, issue, and enforce such orders and > regulations as he deems necessary, in accordance with the provisions of > Section 8567.* > > So in conclusion: > >*The Governor may make [...] regulations * > >*The [...] regulations shall have the force and effect of law.* > >regulations, [...] shall take effect immediately upon their issuance. > >*Governor shall [...] have complete authority over all agencies of the > state government **and the right to exercise within the area designated > all police power* > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 15, 2020, at 1:18 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > If states want to do make rules on giving themselves the authority to make > people wear masks and so on, then states need to write that into their > constitutions and have their legislatures vote on them. None of that has > happened. > > >?I don?t know how your local laws work but I assume people can be fined > by local authorities for relatively harmless things such as not picking up > their dog?s poop, so why would fining people for not wearing a mask be more > difficult to implement? > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > > > City governments do have a lot of leeway on what laws they pass. Ours > never did. The state governor issue orders, but those do not apply to us > unless there is an actual law that we are required to wear masks, which > there are not. Meanwhile, I don?t bother blaming the California governor > for his actions when he has insufficient authority to stop the surge in > infections. > > > > Legislatures make law. Executive branches can only guide enforcement on > how to enforce laws that exist. The Fed can declare martial law, which it > has not done. The state can declare a public health emergency which > enables the governor to direct some additional funding. Businesses can > require patrons wear a mask, which they are doing. There is no known law > or enforcement mechanism for the governor to require masks. Some do, some > do not. > > > > Stathis the real point of all this is that we get it: face masks indoors > makes sense. Handing government arbitrary power in response to a crisis > does not. So we don?t. It really is that simple. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 19:48:23 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 15:48:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <004601d65abc$aa6add50$ff4097f0$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <00bc01d65a11$708226d0$51867470$@rainier66.com> <00fd01d65a1d$9ba324c0$d2e96e40$@rainier66.com> <000e01d65aab$8deaefa0$a9c0cee0$@rainier66.com> <004601d65abc$aa6add50$ff4097f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 11:31 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *> it started in the wet market or the lab, but plenty of us think it was > in the lab.* > Well of course you believe that, believing it doesn't require you to change your worldview by one bit, it's the exact same reason plenty of people believe in Bigfoot and flying saucers. >> ?Doctors and nurses reported that there was a shortage of cheap virus >> protection masks in the US way back in February, and they're STILL >> reporting a shortage of them to this very day. If The president can't even >> solve that simple problem after 5 months do you really think an extra three >> weeks of warning time would have made the slightest difference?... > > > > *> Presidents don?t control that process. * > That statement is just flat out wrong. I suggest you do a Google search for "Defense Production Act" and then look at this: Trump administration's delayed use of 1950s law leads to critical supplies shortages And Spike, you say government can't even mandate something as simple as wearing a virus mask when out in public because the constitution doesn't say anything about it, but the constitution doesn't say anything about cars or traffic laws either and yet government mandates stuff about that. Are you OK with that or should our highways be a free-for-all? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 20:52:36 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 15:52:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some virus statistics In-Reply-To: <000701d65ad5$6acfb760$406f2620$@rainier66.com> References: <013701d659f5$6c95bb20$45c13160$@rainier66.com> <018f01d65a01$c0e35780$42aa0680$@rainier66.com> <001d01d65ac7$b5932740$20b975c0$@rainier66.com> <000701d65ad5$6acfb760$406f2620$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, the MIssissippi legislature, really the whole state, is number one on the list of corrupt states. Your reference to passing the bill to find out what's in it really reverberates. It is just like that. Many of the laws that are passed here are written by lobbyists. I did not know that until recently. Apparently that is common practice (?) and happens in every state and D. C. Yes, I have ignored politics for most of my life and as a result am ignorant and naive. That practice seems to me to disqualify anyone who follows it from being a lawmaker. I do understand that parties have a 'whip' to get the members to fall in line and vote unknowingly. Rubberstamping is apparently rampant. Alabama had a senator who was in the Hanoi Hilton. Jeremiah Denton. Did not go along with any outside pressure and so make a pariah out of himself. Served one term. Of course. Politics and sausage, eh? bill w On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 1:27 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Some virus statistics > > > > >? Same people who rave over seatbelts. ? > > Freedoms come with a price. You may have to lose some of them to benefit > others. > > > > bill w > > > > > > BillW, state legislatures mandated seat belts. Fair game. They > established a legal means of enforcing it, perfectly fair. The state > legislature has not mandated wearing masks. I see no indication that they > are even trying to in California. > > > > Legislatures make law. The governor does not. POTUS does not. The > executives cannot enforce a law that does not exist. So, pass a law. > Wasn?t that simple? (Hint: no. (if congress attempted to pass a law > requiring facemasks, it would be a 1000 pages (and legislators would be > urging their colleagues to hurry and pass it so we could find out what is > in it (which is exactly why there is no law requiring masks (aside: this > same deadlock occurs in the California legislature even though it is > functionally only one party.)))) > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 20:24:45 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2020 16:24:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] How Trump Could Lose the Election and Remain President Message-ID: How Trump Could Lose the Election and Remain President John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 20:29:42 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:29:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Flood-resistant Rice (& possibly other grains) Message-ID: <3A0B9E2E-B0C0-43D9-9158-B43F62075442@gmail.com> Title: New genes control plant height, could lead to flood-proof crops https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/new-genes-control-plant-height-could-lead-flood-proof-crops ?Now, researchers have found two genes that together help control the height of rice plants: one that accelerates the elongation of the stem and another that acts as a brake.? ?Plant molecular geneticist Motoyuki Ashikari of Nagoya University and colleagues have been studying rice varieties that survive long, deep floods by growing taller?and quickly, if need be, up to 25 centimeters per day.? ?If plant breeders or molecular biologists can control those two genes, they might be able to adjust plant height without having to modify GA levels?perhaps even in crops other than rice?says Laura Dixon, a plant biologist at the University of Leeds.? ?The two genes also exist in sugarcane, barley, and the well-studied grass Brachypodium distachyon. They might occur widely in other agriculturally important grasses, Ashikari believes.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 20:40:34 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:40:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Possible Coat-tail Pandemic from China Message-ID: <3B9F9ACA-677C-40EE-93BE-AF36534F5E0A@gmail.com> Title: Swine flu strain with human pandemic potential increasingly found in pigs in China https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/swine-flu-strain-human-pandemic-potential-increasingly-found-pigs-china ?a new finding that pigs in China are more and more frequently becoming infected with a strain of influenza that has the potential to jump to humans has infectious disease researchers worldwide taking serious notice.? ?When multiple strains of influenza viruses infect the same pig, they can easily swap genes, a process known as ?reassortment.? The new study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on an influenza virus dubbed G4. The virus is a unique blend of three lineages: one similar to strains found in European and Asian birds, the H1N1 strain that caused the 2009 pandemic, and a North American H1N1 that has genes from avian, human, and pig influenza viruses.? ?The G4 variant is especially concerning because its core is an avian influenza virus?to which humans have no immunity?with bits of mammalian strains mixed in. ?From the data presented, it appears that this is a swine influenza virus that is poised to emerge in humans,? says Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney who studies pathogens. ?Clearly this situation needs to be monitored very closely.?? ??G4 virus has shown a sharp increase since 2016, and is the predominant genotype in circulation in pigs detected across at least 10 [Chinese] provinces,? they write.? ?Sun Honglei, the paper?s first author, says G4?s inclusion of genes from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic ?may promote the virus adaptation? that leads to human-to-human transmission.? ??The likelihood that this particular variant is going to cause a pandemic is low,? says Martha Nelson, an evolutionary biologist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health?s Fogarty International Center who studies pig influenza viruses in the United States and their spread to humans. But Nelson notes that no one knew about the pandemic H1N1 strain, which jumped from pigs to people, until the first human cases surfaced in 2009. ?Influenza can surprise us,? Nelson says. ?And there?s a risk that we neglect influenza and other threats at this time? of COVID-19.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 23:41:28 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2020 19:41:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Too Much And Never Enough Message-ID: I just finished reading (or rather listening to the book on Audible narrated by the author) Mary Trump's new book "Too Much And Never Enough'' and I highly recommend it. Wow, what a dysfunctional family! It turns out that Mary was the source for that huge 2018 New York Times expos? about the Trump family finances, it was the longest article the Times had ever printed in its entire history and won a Pulitzer Prize. Few people knew Donald better then Mary Trump did especially in his early years, and she makes it clear that he is only half the man his father was, Fred Trump was intelligent and cruel but Donald is just cruel. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 19:47:29 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 14:47:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quickly fading COVID antibodies Message-ID: <2B1FDA38-4629-45B0-AF3B-40166C33996B@gmail.com> TITLE: Scientists find COVID-19 antibodies fade quickly https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20200623/Scientists-find-COVID-19-antibodies-fade-quickly.aspx ?a new study shows that the levels of antibodies found in recovered coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients declined sharply in just two to three months after infection for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.? > https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6 ?Though the study utilized a small sample size, the researchers hope that the findings may help governments decide on allowing those with antibodies to travel to other countries. Antibody testing should be a basis for travel permissions, especially that the findings show that they may still contract the virus.? ?The researchers added that it is unsafe to assume that all who recovered from the infection are immune to the virus, showing that re-infection may still happen in the future.? ?Using antibody tests may not be effective in stemming the spread of the virus since the antibodies decline in just a few months. The study highlights the long-lasting theory that the infection does not provide long-lasting immunity in people who were infected.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 01:39:13 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 20:39:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] quote of the day Message-ID: "The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny." Edward Abbey bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 14:17:00 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 09:17:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Astronauts_=26_Space=E2=80=99s_Bloodclots?= Message-ID: Title: An Alarming Discovery in an Astronaut?s Bloodstream ?An astronaut was carrying out an ultrasound on their own body as part of a new study, guided in real time by a specialist on the ground. A similar test before the astronaut launched to space had come back normal. But now the scan showed a clump of blood.? ?The astronaut wasn?t showing any symptoms stemming from the clot, but was still pulled out of the study and treated with blood-thinning drugs for the rest of their time in orbit.? ?Marshall-Goebel and her team targeted a jugular vein on the left side of the neck, which delivers blood from the head to the heart.? ?Scans showed that blood flow in the vein stalled in five of the 11 astronauts. ?Sometimes it was sloshing back and forth a bit, but there was no net-forward movement,? Marshall-Goebel says. Seeing stagnant blood flow in this kind of vein is rare, she says; the condition usually occurs in the legs, such as when people sit still for hours on a plane. The finding was concerning. Stagnant blood, whether it?s in the neck or in the legs, can clot. Blood clots can dissolve on their own or with the help of anticoagulants, but the blockages can also cause serious problems, such as lung damage.? ?In two astronauts, blood in the vessel actually started moving in the opposite direction, from the heart toward the head, which is ?extremely abnormal? for this vein, according to Marshall-Goebel. The researchers think the blood switched directions because of a blockage somewhere downstream. The phenomenon has been reported in non-astronauts with tumors or masses that forced blood to find a different path to the heart.? https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/602380/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 16:10:07 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 11:10:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution Message-ID: We have cravings for: salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a result of evolution. While they may have served us well getting to now, we have too much of them now for our own good. Of course y'all know that. My question is: what if anything would you add to the list? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 17:56:15 2020 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 11:56:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Status. Attention. On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 10:12 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > We have cravings for: salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a > result of evolution. While they may have served us well getting to now, we > have too much of them now for our own good. Of course y'all know that. My > question is: what if anything would you add to the list? > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 18:26:38 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 19:26:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: <016001d657bd$cec71f80$6c555e80$@rainier66.com> References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <016001d657bd$cec71f80$6c555e80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 at 21:01, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Nuclear power is looking more attractive over time. Those of us who do calculations have concluded that in the long run, it must be nuclear. There is no substitute. > > Recall a discussion in this forum 25 years ago, a thread which was called something like ?Is technology infinite?? That discussion focused on energy generation tech. We have an underlying assumption that technology would always come along, progress would be made, everything will be OK, but even then, we already had a good example of a technology in which astonishing investment had been made and technology didn?t come: nuclear fusion. Today we have tokamacs in operation, but fusion didn?t come. > > We have had progress in energy generation, but we still rely on coal, natural gas, falling water, wind and solar. Technology improved but a quarter of a century later I will still argue as I did then, that technology advance is not infinite. At some point we really do get to the point we have discovered everything there is to know. > > The implications of that notion are appalling. > > In the meantime, nuclear fission will need to carry part of the load. > > spike ----------------------------------- The latest estimates for world energy consumption (for 2019, before Cov19) were - As an overall share of energy consumption, oil remained on top with 33% of all energy consumption. The remainder of global energy consumption came from coal (27%), natural gas (24%), hydropower (6%), renewables (5%), and nuclear power (4%). >From BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020. That 4% nuclear power comes from about 450 nuclear power stations. For nuclear power to make a significant impact it will require building thousands of nuclear power stations. This will take many years and cost trillions of rapidly devaluing currency. In the current environment it will take a huge change for this to become acceptable, if it is even possible. Let's hope for nuclear fusion, or some other innovative energy source to appear. And quickly as well. would be nice! BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 18:55:36 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 14:55:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <016001d657bd$cec71f80$6c555e80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 2:29 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > * > That 4% nuclear power comes from about 450 nuclear power stations. For > nuclear power to make a significant impact it will require building > thousands of nuclear power stations. This will take many years and cost > trillions of rapidly devaluing currency.* Huh? If currency is rapidly devaluing then why is inflation today the lowest it's been in the nation's entire history? *> In the current environment it will take a huge change for this to become > acceptable, if it is even possible. Let's hope for nuclear fusion, or some > other innovative energy source to appear. * > Replacing fossil fuels by ANYTHING, including nuclear fusion as well as fission, would be a HUGE change and require many trillions of dollars; but then COVID19 bungling by the USA has undoubtedly already cost many trillions of dollars. A trillion here a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 19:13:52 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 14:13:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Malthus and Marx In-Reply-To: References: <20200710154823.Horde.p6e9D-6EA8sC0YRtYKH1vaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <016001d657bd$cec71f80$6c555e80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I wish we had more people in D. C. like Everett Dirksen. bill w On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 1:58 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 2:29 PM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >> * > That 4% nuclear power comes from about 450 nuclear power stations. >> For nuclear power to make a significant impact it will require building >> thousands of nuclear power stations. This will take many years and cost >> trillions of rapidly devaluing currency.* > > > Huh? If currency is rapidly devaluing then why is inflation today the > lowest it's been in the nation's entire history? > > *> In the current environment it will take a huge change for this to >> become acceptable, if it is even possible. Let's hope for nuclear fusion, >> or some other innovative energy source to appear. * >> > > Replacing fossil fuels by ANYTHING, including nuclear fusion as well as > fission, would be a HUGE change and require many trillions of dollars; but > then COVID19 bungling by the USA has undoubtedly already cost many > trillions of dollars. A trillion here a trillion there, and pretty soon > you're talking about real money. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 19:41:43 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 14:41:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Status and attention - hmm, I think the first one covers the second one. I do question whether you could consider either one mostly genetic. There was a study supporting your idea: every single student going into the 1st grade thought they were the smartest one. (No, that is not directly status seeking; it's a sort of fake status attainment to me). I do get a lot on Quora about being more assertive, and a lot about how to be less arrogant. I just don't see these as presenting the problems that the others do. bill w On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 12:58 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Status. Attention. > > On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 10:12 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> We have cravings for: salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a >> result of evolution. While they may have served us well getting to now, we >> have too much of them now for our own good. Of course y'all know that. My >> question is: what if anything would you add to the list? >> >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 19:54:16 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 12:54:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New bumper sticker for Portland Message-ID: "Don't be alarmed. I am just a criminal, not a Federal agent." Keith From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 20:02:58 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 13:02:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <05AAB9D8-72F2-4EA9-B4F8-50A95AB9C764@gmail.com> On Jul 18, 2020, at 9:12 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote:? > > We have cravings for: salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a result of evolution. While they may have served us well getting to now, we have too much of them now for our own good. Of course y'all know that. My question is: what if anything would you add to the list? > > bill w I would also wonder if having a population with variable cravings or variable personality traits is not a good thing for the most part. Why? Because it creates a sort of evolutionary potential for the population rather than if everyone has all cravings or traits of a certain set eliminated. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 20:20:18 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 13:20:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New bumper sticker for Portland In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I didn't think that one up. This article is where it came from. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/17/relax-i-know-i-grabbed-you-off-street-im-just-criminal-not-federal-agent/ Keith On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 12:54 PM Keith Henson wrote: > > "Don't be alarmed. I am just a criminal, not a Federal agent." > > > Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 20:22:30 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 16:22:30 -0400 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 12:13 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > We have cravings for: salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a > result of evolution. While they may have served us well getting to now, we > have too much of them now for our own good. Of course y'all know that. My > question is: what if anything would you add to the list? > Evolution is the reason Relativity and Quantum Mechanics seem so counterintuitive to us. Even though they more accurately describe what's really going on at the deepest level an Intuitive understanding of them wouldn't help our ape like ancestors who lived on the African savanna a few million years ago pass their genes into the next generation. In fact evolution is the reason an affinity for the scientific method itself isn't ingrained in our genes, nobody is born being a fan of it it and so must be learned because it's too slow; if one encounter something in the woods that may or may not be a sabertooth tiger then conducting a double blind experimental test to determine if it really is a carnivorous beast and what the best thing to do to stay alive just isn't practical, so a snap decision needs to be made. Back then making pretty good short term decisions was far more important than making very good long-term decisions, that's especially true in a culture that's virtually static, but the faster a society moves the more important long term decisions become. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 20:23:11 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 13:23:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New bumper sticker for Portland In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: BTW, Spike, as a big fan of the constitution, I wonder what you think of what is going on in Portland? I know he wants to be a wartime president, but going to war against Portland? Keith On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 1:20 PM Keith Henson wrote: > > I didn't think that one up. This article is where it came from. > > https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/17/relax-i-know-i-grabbed-you-off-street-im-just-criminal-not-federal-agent/ > > Keith > > On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 12:54 PM Keith Henson wrote: > > > > "Don't be alarmed. I am just a criminal, not a Federal agent." > > > > > > Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 20:33:43 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 13:33:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Coronavirus data In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There have been postings on this list bitching about Coronavirus data from China. I wonder what you think of this headline? Coronavirus data has already disappeared after Trump administration shifted control from CDC https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/16/us-coronavirus-data-has-already-disappeared-after-trump-administration-shifted-control-from-cdc-to-hhs.html Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 20:53:26 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 16:53:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] New bumper sticker for Portland In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 4:35 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > BTW, Spike, as a big fan of the constitution, I wonder what you think of > what is going on in Portland? > And then there's the Republican Governor of Georgia canceling the Democratic Mayor of Atlanta's mandate about using virus masks for people in her city when in public. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 01:40:05 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 21:40:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'd remove fat and salt. Very few people need to restrict sodium intake, and fat is perfectly healthy--unlike carbs, which should be added. On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 12:12 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > We have cravings for: salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a > result of evolution. While they may have served us well getting to now, we > have too much of them now for our own good. Of course y'all know that. My > question is: what if anything would you add to the list? > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 19 02:04:36 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (Gregory Jones) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 19:04:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) Message-ID: drove thru portland friday. went thru early in the day less scary then. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 05:24:02 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 00:24:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4446FE72-0276-477E-AF99-B9E84976CD76@gmail.com> I believe fat and salt were included, not due to their nutritional content, but rather fat?s high caloric value, and salt which prompts many to drink sugary drinks. SR Ballard > On Jul 18, 2020, at 8:40 PM, Dave Sill via extropy-chat wrote: > > I'd remove fat and salt. Very few people need to restrict sodium intake, and fat is perfectly healthy--unlike carbs, which should be added. > >> On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 12:12 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >> We have cravings for: salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a result of evolution. While they may have served us well getting to now, we have too much of them now for our own good. Of course y'all know that. My question is: what if anything would you add to the list? >> >> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 07:51:44 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 00:51:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1D7117F8-1F13-408E-A850-D9693194DC26@gmail.com> On Jul 18, 2020, at 7:10 PM, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: > drove thru portland friday. went thru early in the day less scary then. spike If you hadn?t been aware of the protests (and the federals using secret police tactics), would you have noticed them? See also: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/07/feds-right-wing-media-paint-portland-as-city-under-siege-a-tour-of-town-shows-otherwise.html Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 19 12:44:43 2020 From: spike at rainier66.com (Gregory Jones) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 05:44:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Coronavirus data In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: on a phone cant type w thumbs pls pardon. idea, governments everywhere at all levels are incentivized to under report covid since they need 2 open everything 4 financial reasons.. hospitals over report 4 financial reasons. everyone has fiends and family we can make our own database. i know of a neighbor who we think had covid recovered and one death steve van sickle who apparemtly did not have vovid. keith can you b r databse guy pls everybody post to him if he is willing recovered cases and deaths with a name 2 prevent duplication thx spike On Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 1:44 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > There have been postings on this list bitching about Coronavirus data > from China. I wonder what you think of this headline? > > Coronavirus data has already disappeared after Trump administration > shifted control from CDC > > > https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/16/us-coronavirus-data-has-already-disappeared-after-trump-administration-shifted-control-from-cdc-to-hhs.html > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 13:08:11 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 08:08:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <1D7117F8-1F13-408E-A850-D9693194DC26@gmail.com> References: <1D7117F8-1F13-408E-A850-D9693194DC26@gmail.com> Message-ID: How would anyone know that secret police existed if no one told them? SR Ballard > On Jul 19, 2020, at 2:51 AM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Jul 18, 2020, at 7:10 PM, Gregory Jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> drove thru portland friday. went thru early in the day less scary then. spike > > If you hadn?t been aware of the protests (and the federals using secret police tactics), would you have noticed them? > > See also: > > https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/07/feds-right-wing-media-paint-portland-as-city-under-siege-a-tour-of-town-shows-otherwise.html > > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 13:27:41 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 09:27:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Coronavirus data In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 8:51 AM Gregory Jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> idea, governments everywhere at all levels are incentivized to under > report covid since they need 2 open everything 4 financial reasons.. > hospitals over report 4 financial reasons.* > And this has fooled every epidemiologist on planet Earth and in fact it has fooled the entire scientific community. But it hasn't fooled you. The logical contortions some people force reality to undergo so it can fit into their worldview is painful to behold, but it must be done in order for that worldview to remain absolutely static. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 13:34:18 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 09:34:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: <1D7117F8-1F13-408E-A850-D9693194DC26@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 9:10 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> How would anyone know that secret police existed if no one told them?* > In the current situation "Thought Police" would be a better term than "S ecret Police". John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 15:10:47 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 08:10:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7EE04FEE-6E5D-4BA9-8B0F-E4B445FA49F5@gmail.com> On Jul 19, 2020, at 6:37 AM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote:? > >> On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 9:10 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> > How would anyone know that secret police existed if no one told them? > > In the current situation "Thought Police" would be a better term than "Secret Police". Except that federal agents aren?t policing thoughts on the streets of Portland, OR. They dragging people into unmarked cars. Hence my use of ?secret police tactics.? See, for example, https://apnews.com/95ed013d58a00db0d85ddfd14ab51d2c Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 15:16:59 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 08:16:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20E88EE7-782B-4097-B941-C1F69FFD6BC6@gmail.com> On Jul 19, 2020, at 6:09 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > ?How would anyone know that secret police existed if no one told them? > SR Ballard I used ?secret police tactics,? and meant stuff like dragging people off the street in unmarked cars, which is similar to secret police kidnappings of their victims. Of course, it?s not secret now. And any real world secret police is likely to be known eventually... The notion is less that no one ever ever knows about it ? that the secret part is completely successful ? than that the operations of a secret police are meant to be kept from public and even other legal scrutiny. (Often the tactics and operations are illegal or at least disavowed by the government. But that?s a technicality. After all, what?s legal is defined by whomever is considered the legal authority.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 15:47:11 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 11:47:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Are Space Elevators Possible? Message-ID: Are Space Elevators Possible? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 17:15:12 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 13:15:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Be very afraid Message-ID: People on this list said I was being paranoid but today on Fox News Trump was asked if he would accept the results of the 2020 election if he loses and he said *"I?m not going to just say yes. I?m not going to say no, and I didn?t last time either. I?m not a good loser. I don?t like to lose, I don?t lose too often. I don?t like to lose. You don?t know until you see. It depends.*" He then went on a rant about how the Democrats "*were going to rig the election*". Trump declines to say he'll accept results of election: "I have to see" John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 17:15:53 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 10:15:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Are Space Elevators Possible? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Without watching the video: yes, with better (but plausibly developable) materials tech than we have now, and solving certain problems that appear solvable. Mostly it'll take a lot of money. On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 8:49 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Are Space Elevators Possible? > > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 18:21:02 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 13:21:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <20E88EE7-782B-4097-B941-C1F69FFD6BC6@gmail.com> References: <20E88EE7-782B-4097-B941-C1F69FFD6BC6@gmail.com> Message-ID: My point was that ?secret police? drive in unmarked cars, and snatch people quickly. By definition you don?t see them operating. SR Ballard > On Jul 19, 2020, at 10:16 AM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Jul 19, 2020, at 6:09 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> ?How would anyone know that secret police existed if no one told them? >> SR Ballard > > > I used ?secret police tactics,? and meant stuff like dragging people off the street in unmarked cars, which is similar to secret police kidnappings of their victims. Of course, it?s not secret now. > > And any real world secret police is likely to be known eventually... The notion is less that no one ever ever knows about it ? that the secret part is completely successful ? than that the operations of a secret police are meant to be kept from public and even other legal scrutiny. (Often the tactics and operations are illegal or at least disavowed by the government. But that?s a technicality. After all, what?s legal is defined by whomever is considered the legal authority.) > > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 18:22:27 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 13:22:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Be very afraid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I?m equally/slightly more concerned about the secret police arm of the equation. DHS memo says they intend to extend the ?secret police? into other major cities. SR Ballard > On Jul 19, 2020, at 12:15 PM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > > People on this list said I was being paranoid but today on Fox News Trump was asked if he would accept the results of the 2020 election if he loses and he said "I?m not going to just say yes. I?m not going to say no, and I didn?t last time either. I?m not a good loser. I don?t like to lose, I don?t lose too often. I don?t like to lose. You don?t know until you see. It depends." He then went on a rant about how the Democrats "were going to rig the election". > > Trump declines to say he'll accept results of election: "I have to see" > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 19:45:44 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 12:45:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0FDA3D55-105C-492F-9BBB-DB728CD68112@gmail.com> Okay, but the way I read your initial comment was to doubt these were secret police tactics at all because they?re not being kept secret. Does that seem an unreasonable interpretation of your initial comment? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jul 19, 2020, at 11:23 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?My point was that ?secret police? drive in unmarked cars, and snatch people quickly. By definition you don?t see them operating. > > SR Ballard > >> On Jul 19, 2020, at 10:16 AM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> >>> On Jul 19, 2020, at 6:09 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >>> ?How would anyone know that secret police existed if no one told them? >>> SR Ballard >> >> >> I used ?secret police tactics,? and meant stuff like dragging people off the street in unmarked cars, which is similar to secret police kidnappings of their victims. Of course, it?s not secret now. >> >> And any real world secret police is likely to be known eventually... The notion is less that no one ever ever knows about it ? that the secret part is completely successful ? than that the operations of a secret police are meant to be kept from public and even other legal scrutiny. (Often the tactics and operations are illegal or at least disavowed by the government. But that?s a technicality. After all, what?s legal is defined by whomever is considered the legal authority.) >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 21:02:40 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 16:02:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <0FDA3D55-105C-492F-9BBB-DB728CD68112@gmail.com> References: <0FDA3D55-105C-492F-9BBB-DB728CD68112@gmail.com> Message-ID: No. That?s why I clarified. SR > On Jul 19, 2020, at 2:45 PM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > > Okay, but the way I read your initial comment was to doubt these were secret police tactics at all because they?re not being kept secret. Does that seem an unreasonable interpretation of your initial comment? > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > http://author.to/DanUst > >> On Jul 19, 2020, at 11:23 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> ?My point was that ?secret police? drive in unmarked cars, and snatch people quickly. By definition you don?t see them operating. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 19, 2020, at 10:16 AM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>>> On Jul 19, 2020, at 6:09 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> ?How would anyone know that secret police existed if no one told them? >>>> SR Ballard >>> >>> >>> I used ?secret police tactics,? and meant stuff like dragging people off the street in unmarked cars, which is similar to secret police kidnappings of their victims. Of course, it?s not secret now. >>> >>> And any real world secret police is likely to be known eventually... The notion is less that no one ever ever knows about it ? that the secret part is completely successful ? than that the operations of a secret police are meant to be kept from public and even other legal scrutiny. (Often the tactics and operations are illegal or at least disavowed by the government. But that?s a technicality. After all, what?s legal is defined by whomever is considered the legal authority.) >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Dan > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jul 20 19:57:40 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:57:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Be very afraid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 2:30 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> I?m equally/slightly more concerned about the secret police arm of the > equation. DHS memo says they intend to extend the ?secret police? into > other major cities.* > This is how it starts John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Mon Jul 20 21:03:34 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2020 16:03:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Be very afraid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Oh, this slightly more informative video with less dramatic music: https://youtu.be/9f0sBA61L0Y SR Ballard > On Jul 20, 2020, at 2:57 PM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 2:30 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> > I?m equally/slightly more concerned about the secret police arm of the equation. DHS memo says they intend to extend the ?secret police? into other major cities. > > This is how it starts > > John K Clark > > > > > >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jul 20 23:21:07 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2020 16:21:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Be very afraid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As I?ve said elsewhere, it?s fascism metastasizing. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jul 20 23:49:14 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2020 19:49:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Be very afraid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 5:13 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: This is how it starts > Oh, this slightly more informative video with less dramatic music: > > https://youtu.be/9f0sBA61L0Y > I sorta like dramatic music, and that short video provides all the information needed to conclude that the US Constitution is in mortal danger. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 21 00:49:35 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2020 17:49:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Front page of NYT for July 16 Message-ID: This is one of the more inspiring news articles I have seen. > And yet there one afternoon in early June, right in the middle of the county seat, she happened upon it: a crowd of white people demanding justice for Black lives. They would be joined by Black high school students, children of Latino farmworkers, ?gays, lesbians, queer, transgender, what-ever,? Ms. Wilkerson, 34, said.?This was not the Chambersburg I grew up in. I had no idea. All of these people are just coming out of the woodwork.?The sight was inspiring, she said. But also frustrating. ?Why weren't we doing this a long time ago?? I can answer her question. Younger people may exhibit casual racism, but they feel guilty about it if they realize they are doing it at all. Keith From sen.otaku at gmail.com Tue Jul 21 01:27:23 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2020 20:27:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Be very afraid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <75F07545-2AFA-4727-A778-078D1B151894@gmail.com> I find it basically unwatchable. I have hearing issues so to hear the words I have to make it WAY too loud. SR Ballard > On Jul 20, 2020, at 6:49 PM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 5:13 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> This is how it starts >> >> Oh, this slightly more informative video with less dramatic music: >> >> https://youtu.be/9f0sBA61L0Y > > I sorta like dramatic music, and that short video provides all the information needed to conclude that the US Constitution is in mortal danger. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jul 21 12:44:06 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2020 08:44:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Lightweight armor Message-ID: A new composite material called "Proteus" has been discovered that is only 15% as dense as steel but is much tougher and is extremely difficult to cut or drill through and could find applications in things like body armor, locks and bank vaults. The Researchers got the idea from examining the shell of the abalone which is also a composite material and thanks to its particular construction is 3000 times more break resistant than the sum of its parts. Non-cuttable material created through local resonance and strain rate effects Nature inspires first manufactured non-cuttable material John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Sat Jul 18 20:30:25 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 13:30:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <152651fe-e8fd-6dca-cd7a-c94edf4f0415@pobox.com> On 2020-7-18 09:10, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > We have cravings for:? salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a > result of evolution.? While they may have served us well getting to now, > we have too much of them now for our own good.? Of course y'all know > that.? My question is:? what if anything would you add to the list? I read this first as "what artificial drives would be beneficial?" but did you mean "what other formerly-adaptive drives have I omitted?" ? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jul 19 03:13:03 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 20:13:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] evolution In-Reply-To: <05AAB9D8-72F2-4EA9-B4F8-50A95AB9C764@gmail.com> References: <05AAB9D8-72F2-4EA9-B4F8-50A95AB9C764@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 2020-7-18 13:02, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > I would also wonder if having a population with variable cravings or > variable personality traits is not a good thing for the most part. Why? Because differences between us reduce rivalries? (Anyone happen to know where I picked up this aphorism? "We are all different; this is a good thing, as it helps keep the world orderly.") > Because it creates a sort of evolutionary potential for the population > rather than if everyone has all cravings or traits of a certain set > eliminated. Reminds me of a detail in Greg Egan's ?Incandescence?. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Tue Jul 21 02:15:35 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2020 19:15:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Be very afraid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2020-7-20 16:21, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > As I?ve said elsewhere, it?s fascism metastasizing. In this metaphor, what is the source tumor? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 23 12:53:31 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 08:53:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Virus testing Message-ID: A certain well-known politician has insisted over and over again that the only reason the number of COVID-19 cases is going up is that more testing for it is occurring. Since June 1 testing has gone up by 80%, but the number of positive results for the virus revealed by those tests have gone up by 215%; for the last two weeks the largest increase per capita has been in Alaska, Montana and North Dakota. So the well-known politician is dead wrong, as is his habit. Speaking of the dead, for the last 2 days more Americans have died from COVID-19 than any day since May 28, and summer is supposed to be the quiet time for virus pandemics. But hey .... at least we don't have the horrors of Hillary Clinton's email server to worry about. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 23 14:03:30 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 09:03:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] sweden covid experiment Message-ID: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus-swedish-herd-immunity-drove-up-death-toll-column/5472100002/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Thu Jul 23 16:43:00 2020 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 10:43:00 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Virus testing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: New York, Chicago, and LA are the charnel houses. The flyover states you mention aren't even rounding errors compared to them. What would they have done differently with a federal administration that was /more/ aligned to their disastrous, arguably murderous, decision making processes? I'm genuinely curious to know how you model that. On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 6:56 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > A certain well-known politician has insisted over and over again that the > only reason the number of COVID-19 cases is going up is that more testing > for it is occurring. Since June 1 testing has gone up by 80%, but the > number of positive results for the virus revealed by those tests have gone > up by 215%; for the last two weeks the largest increase per capita has been > in Alaska, Montana and North Dakota. So the well-known politician is dead > wrong, as is his habit. Speaking of the dead, for the last 2 days more > Americans have died from COVID-19 than any day since May 28, and summer is > supposed to be the quiet time for virus pandemics. But hey .... at least we > don't have the horrors of Hillary Clinton's email server to worry about. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 23 21:38:06 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 17:38:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Virus testing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 12:47 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> New York, Chicago, and LA are the charnel houses. The flyover states you > mention aren't even rounding errors compared to them.* > Not now, not per capita. And right now the virus action is in states like Florida Texas and Arizona; the number of people sick with the disease has already beaten New York at its peak, true the number of deaths has not done the same yet, but death is always a lagging indicator. > What would they have done differently with a federal administration that > was /more/ aligned to their disastrous, arguably murderous, decision making > processes? > Well let's see, right off the top of my head ... 1) Start testing and contact tracing for the virus in January as South Korea did before it became so large as to be unstoppable. And if the American test at the time didn't work worth a damn, and it did not, then swallow your pride and use a test made in another country that did work. 2) Encourage the use of a facemask from day one and, most certainly, do *NOT* make mask wearing part of the cultural wars! Then the Governor of Georgia wouldn't stop the Mayor of Atlanta from doing the right thing and issuing a mandate that all residents of her city wear a face mask when in public. 3) Aggressive use of the Defense Production Act. If that was done then today more than 6 months after the pandemic started something as simple as virus masks would STILL not be in short supply and Hospital workers would STILL not be forced to reuse virus masks that were never meant to be reused. 4) Do not encourage states to shut things down far later than scientists said they should, and don't encourage states to re-open things up again long before scientists said it was safe to do so. 5) Don't force children to go back to school before scientists say it's safe to do so. 6 ) Do not have the President of the United States pedal ridiculous quack cures (clorox, hydroxychloroquine, UV light) on national television. 7) Do not go to the supreme court to try to remove health coverage for tens of millions of Americans in the middle of a pandemic. 8) Stop lying to the American people, stop engaging in happy talk and tell the truth about what science knows about the virus. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 24 17:18:06 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 12:18:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: timewaster In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: William Flynn Wallace What is the single most useless thing ever? Originally Answered: What are the most useless items that exist? 1. This useless Sign 2) Yup! The bus has all the seats in place 3) Of course this escalator has a purpose 4) Most pointless book ever? 5) ?The dumbest and most useless street sign? award goes to this one! 6) Pointless balcony 7) You had one job! 8) Useful gate ever! 9) Now I can sit there and relax after a long walk! 10) Useless leggings! 12) Thank god now I know it has peanuts in them! 13) Take a left and bunnyhop to your destination 14) Left or Right or Straight? I?d rather get back to my home 15) Someone explain me how this thing works 16) Let?s install 5 sinks in this toilet. Just in case! 17) Door for superman? 18) These drawers! 19)Pointless wiper blade And here goes the final one.. 20) Someone has put a UV reflector in his convertible! SMARTY PANTS Thanks for Scrolling :) ~ Kate -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 24 17:35:34 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 10:35:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: timewaster In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I can see possible partial/adapted uses for most of these - most strongly #20, where it is clearly protecting the dashboard specifically (if not the rest of the car). That said, #5 wins the "most useless" in this list, IMO - assuming it is not some digital sign, or otherwise putting it into use is easier than installing a new sign, which does not appear to be the case. On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 10:20 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: William Flynn Wallace > What is the single most useless thing ever? > > Originally Answered: What are the most useless items that exist? > > > 1. This useless Sign > > 2) Yup! The bus has all the seats in place > > 3) Of course this escalator has a purpose > > 4) Most pointless book ever? > > 5) ?The dumbest and most useless street sign? award goes to this one! > > 6) Pointless balcony > > 7) You had one job! > > 8) Useful gate ever! > > 9) Now I can sit there and relax after a long walk! > > 10) Useless leggings! > > 12) Thank god now I know it has peanuts in them! > > 13) Take a left and bunnyhop to your destination > > 14) Left or Right or Straight? I?d rather get back to my home > > 15) Someone explain me how this thing works > > 16) Let?s install 5 sinks in this toilet. Just in case! > > 17) Door for superman? > > 18) These drawers! > > 19)Pointless wiper blade > > And here goes the final one.. > > 20) Someone has put a UV reflector in his convertible! SMARTY PANTS > > Thanks for Scrolling :) > > ~ Kate > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 24 19:09:04 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 14:09:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: timewaster In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: OK, you're on. Explain or find a use for #15. bill w On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 12:37 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I can see possible partial/adapted uses for most of these - most strongly > #20, where it is clearly protecting the dashboard specifically (if not the > rest of the car). > > That said, #5 wins the "most useless" in this list, IMO - assuming it is > not some digital sign, or otherwise putting it into use is easier than > installing a new sign, which does not appear to be the case. > > On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 10:20 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message --------- >> From: William Flynn Wallace >> What is the single most useless thing ever? >> >> Originally Answered: What are the most useless items that exist? >> >> >> 1. This useless Sign >> >> 2) Yup! The bus has all the seats in place >> >> 3) Of course this escalator has a purpose >> >> 4) Most pointless book ever? >> >> 5) ?The dumbest and most useless street sign? award goes to this one! >> >> 6) Pointless balcony >> >> 7) You had one job! >> >> 8) Useful gate ever! >> >> 9) Now I can sit there and relax after a long walk! >> >> 10) Useless leggings! >> >> 12) Thank god now I know it has peanuts in them! >> >> 13) Take a left and bunnyhop to your destination >> >> 14) Left or Right or Straight? I?d rather get back to my home >> >> 15) Someone explain me how this thing works >> >> 16) Let?s install 5 sinks in this toilet. Just in case! >> >> 17) Door for superman? >> >> 18) These drawers! >> >> 19)Pointless wiper blade >> >> And here goes the final one.. >> >> 20) Someone has put a UV reflector in his convertible! SMARTY PANTS >> >> Thanks for Scrolling :) >> >> ~ Kate >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 24 19:53:12 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 12:53:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: timewaster In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I said most of them, not all of them. :P #15 may be there as a reminder of where a handicapped parking spot used to be. While of very little use, even that is technically more use than #5, a sign of not even historical significance. On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 12:11 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > OK, you're on. Explain or find a use for #15. bill w > > On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 12:37 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I can see possible partial/adapted uses for most of these - most strongly >> #20, where it is clearly protecting the dashboard specifically (if not the >> rest of the car). >> >> That said, #5 wins the "most useless" in this list, IMO - assuming it is >> not some digital sign, or otherwise putting it into use is easier than >> installing a new sign, which does not appear to be the case. >> >> On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 10:20 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> ---------- Forwarded message --------- >>> From: William Flynn Wallace >>> What is the single most useless thing ever? >>> >>> Originally Answered: What are the most useless items that exist? >>> >>> >>> 1. This useless Sign >>> >>> 2) Yup! The bus has all the seats in place >>> >>> 3) Of course this escalator has a purpose >>> >>> 4) Most pointless book ever? >>> >>> 5) ?The dumbest and most useless street sign? award goes to this one! >>> >>> 6) Pointless balcony >>> >>> 7) You had one job! >>> >>> 8) Useful gate ever! >>> >>> 9) Now I can sit there and relax after a long walk! >>> >>> 10) Useless leggings! >>> >>> 12) Thank god now I know it has peanuts in them! >>> >>> 13) Take a left and bunnyhop to your destination >>> >>> 14) Left or Right or Straight? I?d rather get back to my home >>> >>> 15) Someone explain me how this thing works >>> >>> 16) Let?s install 5 sinks in this toilet. Just in case! >>> >>> 17) Door for superman? >>> >>> 18) These drawers! >>> >>> 19)Pointless wiper blade >>> >>> And here goes the final one.. >>> >>> 20) Someone has put a UV reflector in his convertible! SMARTY PANTS >>> >>> Thanks for Scrolling :) >>> >>> ~ Kate >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbard at wisc.edu Fri Jul 24 20:38:07 2020 From: hibbard at wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 15:38:07 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [ExI] Fwd: timewaster Message-ID: Great stuff! #8, the gate, reminds me of a visit to NOAA in Boulder years ago. I parked my car in a small lot by the security shed and took my bag in, where they searched it. Then me and my bag got back in my car and drove to the main lot where I parked and entered the main building with my bag. On the honor system, you see, to not add anything to my bag from the cache of weapons in my car. From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 25 03:36:23 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 22:36:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] discovery/ puzzle Message-ID: I have discovered a paradox/contradiction in those 15 or so pictures. Which one is it? Bill W -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jul 25 04:18:49 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 21:18:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] discovery/ puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Perhaps the "Sign Not In Use", which is in use to advertise it is not in use, but then it's not in use so...? On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 8:38 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I have discovered a paradox/contradiction in those 15 or so pictures. > Which one is it? Bill W > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 25 10:52:45 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2020 06:52:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility Message-ID: This is one of the best and newest video tours of the ALCOR facility that I've seen: Should I FREEZE MYSELF when I die? | with Katee Sackhoff John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 25 13:57:47 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2020 08:57:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] discovery/ puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 11:21 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Perhaps the "Sign Not In Use", which is in use to advertise it is not in > use, but then it's not in use so...? > > Correct. Now will you please share your, as usual, imaginative takes on >> some of the other ones? You are consistently one of the most creative >> voices in our group. bill w >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jul 25 16:30:38 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2020 09:30:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] discovery/ puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Alright, alright... 1) Among the most useless, as even in impaired visibility conditions, if you can see the sign you can see the end of the sidewalk. Probably only useful in fulfilling government/legal stuff - but as a business owner, I can tell you this is not literally zero use. (Now, the laws that produce such a scenario...but I do not get to make the laws, just comply with them.) 2) A child could sit in the front seat, or perhaps it could be used for cargo - e.g. so you don't have to lift shopping bags all the way off the floor when getting up. 3) Hop the escalator wall and it's still useful for going up. (You can see the curve down at the right edge of the picture.) 4) QR codes to the videos can still be useful information. Given the volume, I suspect it has titles, descriptions, and preview images as well. I question it being worth 5 pounds (or even worth the cost of the paper it's printed on), but I know there are people far more readily hyped on such things than I am. 5) Least useful on the list, as previously pointed out. 6) Possibly useful with further construction, e.g. the doorway to the lower balcony will be constructed so it's useful to have the balcony there before having a doorway that leads to open air. Or perhaps as an attachment point for a fire escape, or otherwise to attach improvised means of ascent or descent. 7) Still useful as a ceremonial barrier, especially if it's mainly for pedestrians walking on that brick area as a sidewalk. Its short length means drivers must be looking out for it and intentionally obey it, but there are events and locations where most to all drivers can reasonably be expected to do so. 8) Again, ceremonial use. If the lawn on either side is not too wide, anyone passing by will at least know there is a line there that means something to someone, perhaps a property line. 9) Even if it'd be difficult to sit there, lying down and having a nap is quite possible. (Assuming it's not raining or otherwise weather-impaired, but if it is you should probably be seeking shelter and not be at this location anyway.) 10) Assuming this refers to the person in the foreground (and assuming said person is wearing leggings at all), even if the leggings are not much of an optical barrier they can still serve as a physical barrier, e.g. against mosquitoes. Optical barrier is presumably provided by the black skirt, which is currently hiked up to allow the other woman access to the groin area - I assume more likely for quick tailoring or similar rather than NSFW activities, given as this is clearly a public location with multiple points of view, but I know there are those who engage in sexual activities in public like that, and the foreground person is apparently "going commando". That said, the foreground legs' "leggings" are translucent enough that I can not be certain there are leggings there, and we are not just seeing bare legs. If the only leggings present are those on the background lady's legs, those seem to be functioning just as fine as most leggings, providing optical and physical barriers. 11) Entry skipped. It's not the most useless item in the original list, only because it's technically not on the original list. 12) Again, potentially useful for satisfying regulations - which may themselves be useless, but (if I was the person in charge of the store where this sign was) if having that sign there means I don't go to jail or get fined, the sign itself would not be useless to me. 13) Just because there is a barrier in the way does not mean this is not the area legally designated as a bike lane. It may illustrate substantial thoughtlessness or even callousness on the part of those who installed the barrier, but the lane is still the lane. Then again, the lane ends shortly after the barrier anyway. 14) Go forward, left, or right, and you're still on the heritage route. This can be useful information to those exploring the route. Alternately, if you want to not be on the route, turn around. 15) As previously explained: could note the space next to it is handicapped (despite the lack of other markings), or could note the former site of a handicapped spot. Either way, almost but not completely useless, coming in just above item 5. 16) Sinks by themselves are not useless. It would be better to install a privacy door in front of that toilet (unless perhaps it is more meant for people throwing up than to receive urine and/or feces), but if you have a bunch of people who may need to quickly wash their hands or other things, multiple sinks are a good way to accommodate that - especially if this is one wing of a bathroom, and other toilers are offscreen to the left and/or right. 17) Forklifts or vehicular ladders might reach that high - or, as with item 6, it might be there to facilitate further construction. Or if you potentially need to drop something from up there quickly. Also potentially useful for throwing people out of, "you have failed me for the last time" style, though that short of a drop will not reliably kill (you'd want at least another story for that) and a less public location would be better. 18) Do the drawers shift horizontally, such that you could do that then pull them out? It looks like they are in that position because the handles can't be pushed any further inward. 19) The white could be because of internal paneling, rather than paint, meaning the blade is still wiping an actual window that could become unblocked. Or perhaps the white on the window has small holes so the inside can see out but us on the outside can not see in. Clearly the wiper blade has seen recent use. 20) The reflector might only be protecting the dashboard, but that is still protection. It might also be more infrared than ultraviolet, e.g. making sure the dashboard (especially the steering wheel) does not become too hot to touch on a sunny day. (Have you ever tried to control a car when the steering wheel was hot enough to burn your skin? Getting protection, and finding relatively cooler spots on the driving wheel, help but it's simpler if the wheel simply doesn't get that hot in the first place.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sat Jul 25 19:16:26 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2020 15:16:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks, John. I watched it all, and thought it was very good. Starbuck from the newer Battlestar Galactica was an added bonus! The pessimist in me wonders if we're going to make it long enough to attain nanotechnology capable of repairing the damage from freezing, but other than money, there's probably not much to lose in trying. Is anyone on here currently signed up with them out of curiosity? On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 6:54 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > This is one of the best and newest video tours of the ALCOR facility that > I've seen: > > Should I FREEZE MYSELF when I die? | with Katee Sackhoff > > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Sat Jul 25 20:09:54 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2020 13:09:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <944145ec-f80e-ea58-17f9-6b87874786a6@pobox.com> On 2020-7-25 12:16, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > Is anyone on here currently signed up with them [Alcor] out of curiosity? Keith Henson seems to be here, and I believe he is signed up, though not exactly out of curiosity! -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jul 25 21:00:37 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2020 17:00:37 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 3:19 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Is anyone on here currently signed up with them out of curiosity?* > Me. I signed a check for $80,000 to ALCOR six years ago and I never regretted it. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbard at wisc.edu Sun Jul 26 16:13:52 2020 From: hibbard at wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2020 11:13:52 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [ExI] Is your Internet connection bad? Message-ID: For the past couple days our Internet has been flakey and we've heard from folks in the UK that they have the same. Anyone else notice this? Wonder if anonymous or someone is doing a huge denial of service? From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jul 26 16:25:46 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2020 12:25:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Is your Internet connection bad? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 12:16 PM Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > For the past couple days our Internet has been flakey > and we've heard from folks in the UK that they have > the same. Anyone else notice this? > I haven't seen any problems and a speed test just gave 715 Mbps down, 97 Mbps up. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 26 23:53:27 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2020 18:53:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle Message-ID: I am attempting to fill a container with water. Ordinary glass. I can get it about half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 00:29:48 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2020 17:29:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Is there a hole halfway up? Or is the glass tilted so it's only able to hold half its normal volume? On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 4:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I am attempting to fill a container with water. Ordinary glass. I can > get it about half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong? > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 01:09:47 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2020 20:09:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No holes, no tilt. bill w On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 7:31 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Is there a hole halfway up? > > Or is the glass tilted so it's only able to hold half its normal volume? > > On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 4:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I am attempting to fill a container with water. Ordinary glass. I can >> get it about half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong? >> >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 02:07:14 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2020 21:07:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <513E6BA4-2139-4279-A250-66EF94D6B8E0@gmail.com> Is it boiling? Filled with rocks? SR Ballard > On Jul 26, 2020, at 8:09 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > No holes, no tilt. bill w > >> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 7:31 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: >> Is there a hole halfway up? >> >> Or is the glass tilted so it's only able to hold half its normal volume? >> >>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 4:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> I am attempting to fill a container with water. Ordinary glass. I can get it about half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong? >>> >>> 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 12:56:16 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 07:56:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: <513E6BA4-2139-4279-A250-66EF94D6B8E0@gmail.com> References: <513E6BA4-2139-4279-A250-66EF94D6B8E0@gmail.com> Message-ID: No and no. Ordinary table glass sitting upright. On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 9:09 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Is it boiling? Filled with rocks? > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 26, 2020, at 8:09 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > No holes, no tilt. bill w > > On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 7:31 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Is there a hole halfway up? >> >> Or is the glass tilted so it's only able to hold half its normal volume? >> >> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 4:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I am attempting to fill a container with water. Ordinary glass. I can >>> get it about half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong? >>> >>> 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 >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 13:21:11 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 07:21:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <513E6BA4-2139-4279-A250-66EF94D6B8E0@gmail.com> Message-ID: Does gravity have anything to do with it? IE, maybe on the ISS. ( Yes, there is a Z or "upright" axis on the space station, even though there is no gfource in that or any other direction.) On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 6:57 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > No and no. Ordinary table glass sitting upright. > > On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 9:09 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Is it boiling? Filled with rocks? >> >> SR Ballard >> >> On Jul 26, 2020, at 8:09 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> No holes, no tilt. bill w >> >> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 7:31 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Is there a hole halfway up? >>> >>> Or is the glass tilted so it's only able to hold half its normal volume? >>> >>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 4:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I am attempting to fill a container with water. Ordinary glass. I can >>>> get it about half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong? >>>> >>>> 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 >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 16:17:17 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 09:17:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility Message-ID: Dylan Distasio wrote: snip > Is anyone on here currently signed up with them out of curiosity? Since 1985. Keith From interzone at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 16:21:24 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 12:21:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >From John's cost, it sounds like he's going 'Head in a Jar.' What about you? On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 12:18 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Dylan Distasio wrote: > > snip > > > Is anyone on here currently signed up with them out of curiosity? > > Since 1985. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 16:24:51 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 11:24:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle Message-ID: Now y'all are making this harder than it is. Hint' you have done this many times. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 16:35:25 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 09:35:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'd consider "it's just being drunk from that fast", but that involves tilting the glass if it's only half full, and you said it's sitting upright. I get the impression there may be yet more significant details that are as yet unsaid (like the fact that it's an ordinary glass sitting upright was). On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 9:31 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Now y'all are making this harder than it is. Hint' you have done this > many times. bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 16:48:11 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 10:48:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm currently signed up for neuro. I signed up with my Dad, just before he died a few years ago. Thank goodness his head is now on ice, despite the desires of the rest of the family. It devastates me, every time I think of my Mom, rotting in the hell that is the grave, due to the family's desires. If Ether goes parabolic, again, (seems to be getting close) I'm thinking of converting to full body $80K -> $200K. Any thoughts on converting to that option? I've heard that some people think it isn't a better option? I also want to fund accounts for my wife, and 3 adult kids. I'm hoping this will pressure them into taking it, as for now, they don't seem to want to. I want to do it in a way such that if they don't take advantage of the funding provided to Alcor, Alcor can use it to fund anyone they deem worth the funding, or something? Thoughts? Are any of you trying to put pressure on family members to get them on ice? Is anything working? On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 10:18 AM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Dylan Distasio wrote: > > snip > > > Is anyone on here currently signed up with them out of curiosity? > > Since 1985. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 16:58:59 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 12:58:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <513E6BA4-2139-4279-A250-66EF94D6B8E0@gmail.com> Message-ID: Is it ice? In a form that leaves about half the glass as empty air? On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 9:22 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Does gravity have anything to do with it? > IE, maybe on the ISS. ( Yes, there is a Z or "upright" axis on the space > station, even though there is no gfource in that or any other direction.) > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 6:57 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> No and no. Ordinary table glass sitting upright. >> >> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 9:09 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Is it boiling? Filled with rocks? >>> >>> SR Ballard >>> >>> On Jul 26, 2020, at 8:09 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> No holes, no tilt. bill w >>> >>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 7:31 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Is there a hole halfway up? >>>> >>>> Or is the glass tilted so it's only able to hold half its normal volume? >>>> >>>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 4:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I am attempting to fill a container with water. Ordinary glass. I >>>>> can get it about half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong? >>>>> >>>>> 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 >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 17:58:44 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 12:58:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <513E6BA4-2139-4279-A250-66EF94D6B8E0@gmail.com> Message-ID: No. Y'll are going to kick yourselves when the answer appears. It just isn't that hard. I will say that some of the answers are more interesting than the question. Spike, you should post yours. bill w On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 12:01 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Is it ice? In a form that leaves about half the glass as empty air? > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 9:22 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Does gravity have anything to do with it? >> IE, maybe on the ISS. ( Yes, there is a Z or "upright" axis on the space >> station, even though there is no gfource in that or any other direction.) >> >> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 6:57 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> No and no. Ordinary table glass sitting upright. >>> >>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 9:09 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Is it boiling? Filled with rocks? >>>> >>>> SR Ballard >>>> >>>> On Jul 26, 2020, at 8:09 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>> No holes, no tilt. bill w >>>> >>>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 7:31 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Is there a hole halfway up? >>>>> >>>>> Or is the glass tilted so it's only able to hold half its normal >>>>> volume? >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 4:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> I am attempting to fill a container with water. Ordinary glass. I >>>>>> can get it about half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong? >>>>>> >>>>>> 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 >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 18:00:07 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 13:00:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No significant details. You have all the info you need. bill w On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 11:37 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I'd consider "it's just being drunk from that fast", but that involves > tilting the glass if it's only half full, and you said it's sitting upright. > > I get the impression there may be yet more significant details that are as > yet unsaid (like the fact that it's an ordinary glass sitting upright was). > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 9:31 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Now y'all are making this harder than it is. Hint' you have done this >> many times. 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 19:10:01 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 12:10:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 9:49 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Are any of you trying to put pressure on family members to get them on ice? > Is anything working? > Not everyone is cut out for immortality. It's hard enough to get my family to agree to allow me to be cryopreserved rather than incinerated or buried - but if that is the fate they insist upon for themselves, so be it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 19:23:24 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 14:23:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Monday's mental mullygrubs Message-ID: This reminds me of a story told by a physicist who was the son of a physicist who had a famous friend - Einstein. The latter was at his house one day and his dad and Al were puzzling over some of the toys. They were coming to very complicated theories of how they operated, but in fact the mechanisms were very simple. So maybe y'all are just overthinking. this, eh? You are going to kick yourselves, I promise. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 19:47:54 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 12:47:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Monday's mental mullygrubs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I remain skeptical that, despite the promises to the contrary, there does not yet remain critical unsaid information, based on the amount of information that has been introduced after the initial problem statement email. On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 12:25 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > This reminds me of a story told by a physicist who was the son of a > physicist who had a famous friend - Einstein. > > The latter was at his house one day and his dad and Al were puzzling over > some of the toys. They were coming to very complicated theories of how > they operated, but in fact the mechanisms were very simple. > > So maybe y'all are just overthinking. this, eh? > > You are going to kick yourselves, I promise. > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jul 27 20:00:23 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 13:00:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] UFOs again Message-ID: <20200727130023.Horde.DJkiD_nAwUAoQ25X6Nnk-DE@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> The Pentagon sure chose an odd time to come (relatively) clean about its UFO program. It could be correlated to the creation of the U.S. Space Force. It could be simply a distraction from the pandemic and riots. But we sure do live in interesting times. :-) https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p526x296/115941526_10105926325418338_783423148093303449_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=u0BttLw3snoAX-SxC3i&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&_nc_tp=6&oh=68b59a04c80a82e76e01785ed859b0ae&oe=5F43E05D Here is the declassified video footage: Video 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWLZgnmRDs4 Video 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TumprpOwHY Video 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUrTsrhVce4 I find one of the most interesting things to occur in the final seconds of the the first video. Twice starting at about 1:10 into the video, the object accelerates fast enough to break the FLIR targeting lock represented by the onscreen reticle. The first time the object does this at about 1:12, the FLIR system, or perhaps the operator, manages to reacquire the target lock, but the second time around 1:13 the targeting system fails to reacquire the object. The most curious aspect is that just at the onset of both velocity boosts, the monitor shows spikes in interference where the screen turns to horizontal lines. Could this be caused by some sort of EMP originating from the object? If so that would suggest some sort of electromagnetic or nuclear drive. Here is an article in Popular Mechanics where an astrophysicist who worked for the program said he examined materials more advanced than ours. The astrophysicist Eric Davis, who consulted with the Pentagon?s original UFO program and now works for the defense contractor Aerospace Corporation, told the Times that after he examined certain materials, he came to the conclusion that ?we couldn?t make [them] ourselves.? In fact, Davis briefed a Department of Defense (DOD) agency as recently as March about retrieving materials from ?off-world vehicles not made on this earth.? Also a Pentagon spokesperson says, "As we have said previously, the Department of Defense and all of the military departments take any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously, and examine each report,[ . . .]" Of note, any experimental vehicle of ours that might have been being tested during the military exercises would have been AUTHORIZED to be in the airspace even if the pilots involved didn't know about them. Also there is the fact that the videos had been screened for classified content before being released implying that nothing depicted in the videos is our own, and therefore classified, technology. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a33413777/pentagon-ufo-program-materials-vehicles/ What do you all think? Chinese, Russian, ball lightening, or ET? Stuart LaForge From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Jul 27 20:35:05 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 16:35:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> A straw..... slurrrp! From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Mon Jul 27 20:50:30 2020 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 16:50:30 -0400 Subject: [ExI] UFOs again In-Reply-To: <20200727130023.Horde.DJkiD_nAwUAoQ25X6Nnk-DE@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200727130023.Horde.DJkiD_nAwUAoQ25X6Nnk-DE@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <3F203858-BE76-405E-86E0-5017F02E157E@alumni.virginia.edu> According to Bob Lazar, who seems more credible than ever, and I just watched the Netflix movie about him, the craft he worked on moved by manipulating gravity and space/time. As I understand it, Element 115 when exposed to radiation generates its own antigravitational field which is then amplified and directionalized (warping space/time?) much as if a bowling ball is placed on a mattress creating a void the craft moves to. See below which has clips from the movie: https://youtu.be/ghkFTRY4ZB0 https://youtu.be/GFhqpTK9Ysc > On Jul 27, 2020, at 4:00 PM, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > The Pentagon sure chose an odd time to come (relatively) clean about its UFO program. It could be correlated to the creation of the U.S. Space Force. It could be simply a distraction from the pandemic and riots. But we sure do live in interesting times. :-) > > https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p526x296/115941526_10105926325418338_783423148093303449_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=u0BttLw3snoAX-SxC3i&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&_nc_tp=6&oh=68b59a04c80a82e76e01785ed859b0ae&oe=5F43E05D > > Here is the declassified video footage: > Video 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWLZgnmRDs4 > Video 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TumprpOwHY > Video 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUrTsrhVce4 > > I find one of the most interesting things to occur in the final seconds of the the first video. Twice starting at about 1:10 into the video, the object accelerates fast enough to break the FLIR targeting lock represented by the onscreen reticle. The first time the object does this at about 1:12, the FLIR system, or perhaps the operator, manages to reacquire the target lock, but the second time around 1:13 the targeting system fails to reacquire the object. The most curious aspect is that just at the onset of both velocity boosts, the monitor shows spikes in interference where the screen turns to horizontal lines. Could this be caused by some sort of EMP originating from the object? If so that would suggest some sort of electromagnetic or nuclear drive. > > Here is an article in Popular Mechanics where an astrophysicist who worked for the program said he examined materials more advanced than ours. > > The astrophysicist Eric Davis, who consulted with the Pentagon?s original UFO program and now works for the defense contractor Aerospace Corporation, told the Times that after he examined certain materials, he came to the conclusion that ?we couldn?t make [them] ourselves.? In fact, Davis briefed a Department of Defense (DOD) agency as recently as March about retrieving materials from ?off-world vehicles not made on this earth.? > > Also a Pentagon spokesperson says, "As we have said previously, the Department of Defense and all of the military departments take any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously, and examine each report,[ . . .]" > > Of note, any experimental vehicle of ours that might have been being tested during the military exercises would have been AUTHORIZED to be in the airspace even if the pilots involved didn't know about them. > > Also there is the fact that the videos had been screened for classified content before being released implying that nothing depicted in the videos is our own, and therefore classified, technology. > > https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a33413777/pentagon-ufo-program-materials-vehicles/ > > What do you all think? Chinese, Russian, ball lightening, or ET? > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 21:01:54 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 17:01:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 12:50 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat wrote: > I'm thinking of converting to full body $80K -> $200K. Any thoughts on converting to that option? I think that would be a very bad idea. If my brain is preserved then my complete genome is automatically preserved too because that information is encoded in every cell in my body, but I don't much care if some information about wear and tare John K Clark received during his lifetime is preserved or not, such as a small scar on my right big toe or slight dent in my left kneecap. There is even some information I'd prefer not to be preserved, such as the information that causes my immune system to have certain allergies. And it's likely if Alcor concentrates on preserving just my brain they can do a better job then if they compromise and try to do it for my entire body. That's why even Max More, who runs ALCOR, for his own personal Cryopreservation has decided to only freeze his head. Also, if something unexpected happens in the next century and Alcor must make an emergency move to a new location very quickly then my chances of successfully making the move are better if what they have to move is smaller. So if you go for full-body you'll be paying more than twice as much and getting an inferior cryopreservation that has less chance of preserving the critical brain information that is really needed for survival. John K Clark From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 21:11:55 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 17:11:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] UFOs again In-Reply-To: <3F203858-BE76-405E-86E0-5017F02E157E@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <20200727130023.Horde.DJkiD_nAwUAoQ25X6Nnk-DE@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <3F203858-BE76-405E-86E0-5017F02E157E@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 4:52 PM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> According to Bob Lazar, who seems more credible than ever, and I just > watched the Netflix movie about him, the craft he worked on moved by > manipulating gravity and space/time. As I understand it, Element 115 when > exposed to radiation generates its own antigravitational field which is > then amplified and directionalized (warping space/time?) much as if a > bowling ball is placed on a mattress creating a void the craft moves to. * *Can you say "crackpot"? I can.* *John K Clark* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 21:16:09 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 16:16:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: This is getting ridiculous: as I see it there are three pertinent variables here: the amount of water in the glass. the amount of water coming out of the fixture, and.........? bill w On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:43 PM MB via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > A straw..... slurrrp! > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 21:25:21 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 14:25:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] UFOs again In-Reply-To: <20200727130023.Horde.DJkiD_nAwUAoQ25X6Nnk-DE@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200727130023.Horde.DJkiD_nAwUAoQ25X6Nnk-DE@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 1:01 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What do you all think? Chinese, Russian, ball lightening, or ET? > The third, or some other natural phenomena. We know we do not yet understand all there is about the natural world; we keep making new discoveries all the time, and that includes atmospheric science. China or Russia would not have been able to keep a secret this long, and ETs would have a lot more corroborating evidence. On the contrary, nonsupernatural Mother Nature has proven to be a formidable keeper of mysteries through the ages. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 21:46:24 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 17:46:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: Ok is it a semantic thing? You say "I can get it half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong?" Ok, so you CAN get it half full, AND you keep adding water. These aren't mutually exclusive. So... nothing is wrong? On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:20 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > This is getting ridiculous: as I see it there are three pertinent > variables here: the amount of water in the glass. the amount of water > coming out of the fixture, and.........? bill w > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:43 PM MB via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> A straw..... slurrrp! >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 21:52:04 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 16:52:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: Good catch. No, sorry - did not think of that: reword "I can only get it half full though I keep adding water trying to get it full" bill w On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 4:48 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Ok is it a semantic thing? You say "I can get it half full though I keep > adding water. What's wrong?" Ok, so you CAN get it half full, AND you keep > adding water. These aren't mutually exclusive. > > So... nothing is wrong? > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:20 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> This is getting ridiculous: as I see it there are three pertinent >> variables here: the amount of water in the glass. the amount of water >> coming out of the fixture, and.........? bill w >> >> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:43 PM MB via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> A straw..... slurrrp! >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 22:19:36 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 18:19:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: Are you pouring it from so high it's splashing out? On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:53 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Good catch. No, sorry - did not think of that: reword "I can only get it > half full though I keep adding water trying to get it full" bill w > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 4:48 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Ok is it a semantic thing? You say "I can get it half full though I keep >> adding water. What's wrong?" Ok, so you CAN get it half full, AND you keep >> adding water. These aren't mutually exclusive. >> >> So... nothing is wrong? >> >> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:20 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> This is getting ridiculous: as I see it there are three pertinent >>> variables here: the amount of water in the glass. the amount of water >>> coming out of the fixture, and.........? bill w >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:43 PM MB via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> A straw..... slurrrp! >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 22:28:14 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 16:28:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: This is getting fun. How many more guesses can we make, without getting it right? Someone needs to include all the provided answers (including Spikes!), numbered. On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 4:20 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Are you pouring it from so high it's splashing out? > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:53 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Good catch. No, sorry - did not think of that: reword "I can only get >> it half full though I keep adding water trying to get it full" bill w >> >> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 4:48 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Ok is it a semantic thing? You say "I can get it half full though I >>> keep adding water. What's wrong?" Ok, so you CAN get it half full, AND you >>> keep adding water. These aren't mutually exclusive. >>> >>> So... nothing is wrong? >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:20 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> This is getting ridiculous: as I see it there are three pertinent >>>> variables here: the amount of water in the glass. the amount of water >>>> coming out of the fixture, and.........? bill w >>>> >>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:43 PM MB via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> A straw..... slurrrp! >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Mon Jul 27 22:43:14 2020 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 18:43:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <8757d3eb93a64a0f5f7852dd5f73f37d.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Ok. You've got a water outage.... you livin' at my house? On Mon, July 27, 2020 17:52, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > Good catch. No, sorry - did not think of that: reword "I can only get it > half full though I keep adding water trying to get it full" bill w > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 4:48 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Ok is it a semantic thing? You say "I can get it half full though I >> keep >> adding water. What's wrong?" Ok, so you CAN get it half full, AND you >> keep >> adding water. These aren't mutually exclusive. >> >> So... nothing is wrong? >> >> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:20 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> This is getting ridiculous: as I see it there are three pertinent >>> variables here: the amount of water in the glass. the amount of water >>> coming out of the fixture, and.........? bill w >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:43 PM MB via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> A straw..... slurrrp! >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 Mon Jul 27 23:31:32 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 18:31:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: This is close enough. Congrats Will. The third variable was the force of the water stemming from turning on the tap too much. bill w On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 5:21 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Are you pouring it from so high it's splashing out? > > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:53 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Good catch. No, sorry - did not think of that: reword "I can only get >> it half full though I keep adding water trying to get it full" bill w >> >> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 4:48 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Ok is it a semantic thing? You say "I can get it half full though I >>> keep adding water. What's wrong?" Ok, so you CAN get it half full, AND you >>> keep adding water. These aren't mutually exclusive. >>> >>> So... nothing is wrong? >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:20 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> This is getting ridiculous: as I see it there are three pertinent >>>> variables here: the amount of water in the glass. the amount of water >>>> coming out of the fixture, and.........? bill w >>>> >>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:43 PM MB via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> A straw..... slurrrp! >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 01:20:35 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 20:20:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <61084542-334A-42A8-A80D-23AF19177AEA@gmail.com> Ah yes, the good old ?it?s being filled with both air and water!? SR Ballard > On Jul 27, 2020, at 6:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > This is close enough. Congrats Will. The third variable was the force of the water stemming from turning on the tap too much. bill w > >> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 5:21 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >> Are you pouring it from so high it's splashing out? >> >>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:53 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> Good catch. No, sorry - did not think of that: reword "I can only get it half full though I keep adding water trying to get it full" bill w >>> >>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 4:48 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> Ok is it a semantic thing? You say "I can get it half full though I keep adding water. What's wrong?" Ok, so you CAN get it half full, AND you keep adding water. These aren't mutually exclusive. >>>> >>>> So... nothing is wrong? >>>> >>>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 17:20 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> This is getting ridiculous: as I see it there are three pertinent variables here: the amount of water in the glass. the amount of water coming out of the fixture, and.........? bill w >>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:43 PM MB via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> A straw..... slurrrp! >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 02:07:51 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 22:07:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: <61084542-334A-42A8-A80D-23AF19177AEA@gmail.com> References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <61084542-334A-42A8-A80D-23AF19177AEA@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 9:23 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Ah yes, the good old ?it?s being filled with both air and water!? > Or the glass is already 50% volume with rocks or sand (small rocks) or mercury or any other displacement that prevents more than 50% water to fill the glass regardless of how much more water is available. We could probably get spike to figure out how much energy it would take to completely separate the water via electrolysis at exactly the output of the faucet. Likely the heat generated will cause sufficient steam pressure that will prevent water from reaching the glass. So much to consider there with diameter and height of the glass, average temperature of water coming out of the faucet, mineral content of the water, efficiency and durability of the anode+cathode, and whether there are easier ways to explode yourself. How "full of water" is a glass at various temperatures and pressures? Is it possible to form ice above boiling point with high enough pressure? That sounds like a fantasy game quest: frozen steam. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 03:53:11 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 20:53:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility Message-ID: Dylan Distasio wrote: >From John's cost, it sounds like he's going 'Head in a Jar.' What about you? Same. They are actually aluminum cans, wired down lids, patient information riveted on, copy of paperwork stuffed in with the patient. Compared with repairing the damage we know freezing (and death) causes, knitting a body off the stump of the neck looks relatively easy. After all, every cell in your body has the complete instruction for growing a body. I am not trying to sell you on cryonics. You need to do that yourself and it takes an awful lot of background. Mine came from reviewing several drafts of Drexler's book. (On the other hand, when Alcor had only a couple of hundred members about 1/3rd of them traced their interest through me.) Keith From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 04:22:13 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Keith, I was just having a little fun with the head in the jar comment. I haven't signed up yet and still need to look into the funding angle (and get buy in from the spouse), but I'm fully on board with rolling the dice on cryonics. Fate willing, I'm still hoping to live long enough for some aging reversal breakthroughs as well, so I'm hoping to prolong this first round. I'm 49, and realizing there are zero guarantees of another day breathing, I'm already attempting to slow aging through a number of pharmaceutical and nutriceutical interventions, but have no idea if that bet will pay off either. When I read Drexler's book many years ago in my much younger days, it absolutely blew my mind and got me more interested in futurism than I already was (BTW, does anyone else miss Mondo 2000 around here?!). I have to say though, I'm a bit disappointed how far away we seem to remain from Drexler's vision of nanotechnology. Anyways, thanks for all the comments on this thread as it has reminded me I should fully look into the cephalon package at ALCOR sooner rather than later, and convince the better half we both should do it. On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 11:54 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Dylan Distasio wrote: > > >From John's cost, it sounds like he's going 'Head in a Jar.' What about > you? > > Same. > > They are actually aluminum cans, wired down lids, patient information > riveted on, copy of paperwork stuffed in with the patient. > > Compared with repairing the damage we know freezing (and death) > causes, knitting a body off the stump of the neck looks relatively > easy. After all, every cell in your body has the complete instruction > for growing a body. > > I am not trying to sell you on cryonics. You need to do that yourself > and it takes an awful lot of background. Mine came from reviewing > several drafts of Drexler's book. (On the other hand, when Alcor had > only a couple of hundred members about 1/3rd of them traced their > interest through me.) > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Tue Jul 28 05:30:43 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 22:30:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] UFOs again Message-ID: <20200727223043.Horde.n_-KL8gyr9kLyKGQsiPdiY0@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Adrian Tymes: > On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 1:01 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> What do you all think? Chinese, Russian, ball lightening, or ET? >> > > The third, or some other natural phenomena. We know we do not yet > understand all there is about the natural world; we keep making new > discoveries all the time, and that includes atmospheric science. China or > Russia would not have been able to keep a secret this long, and ETs would > have a lot more corroborating evidence. On the contrary, nonsupernatural > Mother Nature has proven to be a formidable keeper of mysteries through the > ages. But what about the Popular Mechanics article? You have an astrophysicist claiming to have seen and worked with materials and "vehicles not of this earth" and he is gainfully employed in his field, and not a crackpot working the UFO lecture circuit. I mean Popular Mechanics is not the Weekly World News. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a33413777/pentagon-ufo-program-materials-vehicles/?fbclid=IwAR3QHsXHzT1oApJ7ITn7hgD-IKZpsXcj2m3QW1wqy3viINZC3M0CkmS8i0g Stuart LaForge From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 06:12:37 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 23:12:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] UFOs again In-Reply-To: <20200727223043.Horde.n_-KL8gyr9kLyKGQsiPdiY0@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200727223043.Horde.n_-KL8gyr9kLyKGQsiPdiY0@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 10:32 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > But what about the Popular Mechanics article? You have an > astrophysicist claiming to have seen and worked with materials and > "vehicles not of this earth" > 1) Argument from authority is a logical fallacy. If he isn't producing any actual evidence, his claims are just claims, doesn't matter who he is. 2) Arguably, meteoric iron and moon dust (refined or not) are materials "not of this earth". Technically, one can make a case that vehicles made with any non-zero amount of these materials are therefore "vehicles not of this earth". But mostly point 1. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 07:59:01 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:59:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility Message-ID: Dylan Distasio wrote: snip > Fate willing, I'm still hoping to live long enough for some aging reversal breakthroughs as well, so I'm hoping to prolong this first round. That's already happening. Like my Mom, I developed age-related macular degeneration at about the same age. She went more or less blind, could not read, a disaster since she was an author. But since then, the medical profession developed a treatment that they used on me. It's kind of drastic, they stick a needle right into your eyeball every 6 to 8 weeks and inject an inhibitor to the growing blood vessels that are ruining your vision. In my case, it completely reversed the degeneration. snip > I'm already attempting to slow aging through a number of pharmaceutical and nutriceutical interventions, but have no idea if that bet will pay off either. I think I have talked about this on Extropians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alagebrium I have used it for almost 20 years now. I started using it as a remarkable remover of plaque. Discovered accidentally that it completely reversed angina for me. I was on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_riboside for a couple of years before Science had three articles in one issue about it doing such things as extending the lifespan of mice. Made me feel kind of smug. snip > (BTW, does anyone else miss Mondo 2000 around here?!). Yes, still in contact with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._U._Sirius > I have to say though, I'm a bit disappointed how far away we seem to remain from Drexler's vision of nanotechnology. It turned out to be harder than Eric and others thought. I suspect that the main center of work has moved to China. snip > and convince the better half we both should do it. My wife, who is a professional editor, also read Eric's drafts, We read them to each other while on long trips. If she was not driving, she was wielding a red pencil. She is the detail-oriented one of us and took the lead in getting us and our daughter (two years old at the time) signed up. If you want to introduce wives on zoom, you have my email. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 08:11:57 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 01:11:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility Message-ID: Re this topic Nanorobot Ethics Dr. Ido Bachelet, together with students across varying disciplines at the Bar Ilan University, works with molecular sized robots to automate processes within our biological systems to repair and improve one?s overall health. https://www.terasemjournals.org/GNJournal/GN1001/GN1001.html Keith From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 09:50:29 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 10:50:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Anti-aging Message-ID: The Fight Aging website This site has all the latest news about anti-aging research, with many links to related organisations. including - SENS Research Foundation works to develop, promote, and ensure widespread access to therapies that cure and prevent the diseases and disabilities of aging by comprehensively repairing the damage that builds up in our bodies over time. We are redefining the way the world researches and treats age-related ill health, while inspiring the next generation of biomedical scientists. ------------ The dietary supplements industry is already huge - now over 100 billion USD p.a. People already buy many supplements of dubious value in order to live longer and healthier lives. In theory companies are not allowed to make medical claims that they can treat diseases, but the FDA has to play whack-a-mole, continually fining and closing down offending companies. There are also quality control problems and dangerous ingredients. Currently I doubt that there are any 'secret' supplements that significantly extend life better than exercise and a healthy diet that avoids obesity. (If you can find a supplement by an internet search then it's not 'secret'). But if something is found that works, then you can be sure that Big Pharma will be selling it to everyone and raking in huge profits. That is exactly the type of treatment they dream of. Something that everyone has to buy and take every day - for ever! BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 12:48:12 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 07:48:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle Message-ID: Now will somebody tell me what made the puzzle so hard? Aside from a minor wording that Will caught, which I have to think didn't confuse anyone, how could the puzzle be presented better? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 13:04:16 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 08:04:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] metformin and curcurmin Message-ID: https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/articles/is-metformin-a-miracle-or-a-menace?utm_source=The+People%27s+Pharmacy+Newsletter&utm_campaign=09132dbde0-MC_D_2020-07-28%26subscriber%3D1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7300006d3c-09132dbde0-214968749&goal=0_7300006d3c-09132dbde0-214968749&mc_cid=09132dbde0&mc_eid=b9c6f5005a https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32657143/ I take both and have been for years. My recent bone scan showed no metatasizing of my prostate cancer. My recent psa is over 60. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 13:08:23 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 09:08:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 8:50 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Now will somebody tell me what made the puzzle so hard? Aside from a > minor wording that Will caught, which I have to think didn't confuse > anyone, how could the puzzle be presented better? > You were looking for one particular answer. You got several valid answers. The situation you envisioned is pretty contrived: most faucets are easily adjustable to control the rate of flow. You said "half full" when you really meant "partially full". Half, in this case, is overly specific and misleading. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 13:58:09 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 09:58:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Anti-aging In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 5:53 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Currently I doubt that there are any 'secret' supplements that > significantly extend life better than exercise and a healthy diet that > avoids obesity. > Agreed. But if something is found that works, then you can be sure that Big > Pharma will be selling it to everyone and raking in huge profits. > That is exactly the type of treatment they dream of. Something that > everyone has to buy and take every day - for ever! > They make money by selling exclusive products at prices that more than recoup the cost of development, not by competing against each other to purify and market biochemicals. The only exception is when they can take a known supplement and package it in a way that makes it patentable or controlled by the FDA as a drug, like the two prescription fish oil products Lovaza and Vascepa. It remains to be seen if such products have a good ROI. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 16:39:15 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 11:39:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_Zombies_are_stalking_America=E2=80=99s_un?= =?utf-8?q?employed?= In-Reply-To: <70.85.14618.9D2502F5@bk.mta2vrest.cc.prd.sparkpost> References: <70.85.14618.9D2502F5@bk.mta2vrest.cc.prd.sparkpost> Message-ID: Any of you conservatives out there care to give an opinion of Krugmans' column? bill w [image: Paul Krugman] July 28, 2020 Spencer Platt/Getty Images [image: Author Headshot] By Paul Krugman Opinion Columnist The Social Security Act of 1935, which established the retirement system that to this day provides half of American seniors with a majority of their income, was originally called the ?Economic Security Bill .? That?s because at the time the retirement program was widely seen as less important than the establishment of a national system (run through the states) of unemployment insurance. Unemployment insurance was, however, deeply controversial; it faced bitter opposition from conservatives who claimed that it would discourage workers from seeking jobs. This was absurd given the circumstances. We were, after all, in the middle of the Great Depression, and there weren?t any jobs. But I guess we can cut the 1930s opponents of unemployment benefits some slack, since modern macroeconomics didn?t yet exist and there was still widespread confusion about what caused depressions. There was no comparable excuse when virulent opposition to unemployment benefits reappeared in 2009-2010. There was no mystery about the causes of the Great Recession and the reason so many Americans had lost their jobs: it was all about a financial crisis brought on by financial overreach. It certainly wasn?t about lack of motivation on the part of the unemployed: in early 2010 there were 15 million unemployed workers chasing fewer than 3 million job openings . Continue reading the main story <#m_-8651966535960715451_a11y-skip-0> ADVERTISEMENT Yet much of the Republican Party went on the attack against the expanded unemployment benefits the Obama administration had put in place to cushion the blow of the crisis. For example, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona declared that unemployment insurance ?doesn?t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.? Actually, unemployment compensation was creating jobs, by putting money in the hands of people likely to spend it, sustaining overall demand. But conservatives couldn?t see it. For the notion that unemployment happens because we make life too easy for the unemployed is a zombie idea ? an idea that persists no matter how many times evidence should have killed it; it just keeps shambling along, eating politicians? brains. And now here we are, in another crisis. This time the cause was the coronavirus, which forced much of the economy into lockdown, pushing tens of millions of workers into unemployment. Desperate times ? but not as desperate as one might have imagined, largely thanks to a big expansion of unemployment benefits under the CARES Act, passed in late March. A key provision added $600 a week to standard unemployment benefits. Too many workers had a hard time accessing these benefits, largely because state unemployment offices were overwhelmed. Even so, there was much less misery than a depression-level unemployment rate would have generated without those benefits. Aid to workers also helped contain the slump, by sustaining consumer spending. Continue reading the main story <#m_-8651966535960715451_a11y-skip-1> ADVERTISEMENT But the expanded benefits expire this week, even though the virus-induced depression is still very much with us. Unless Congress acts, almost all unemployed workers have already seen their last check. And Congress is unlikely to act, because Senate Republicans? brains have been eaten by the unemployment zombie. Worrying that aid to the unemployed will make them lazy seems absurd when there are more than 30 million unemployed workers receiving benefits and only 5 million job openings. Unemployment benefits also didn?t stop 7 million workers from accepting jobs during the aborted economic takeoff of May and June , an attempted recovery cut short by the resurgence of Covid-19. But zombie ideas never die. Republicans apparently think that they?re being generous by ?only? proposing to cut supplemental benefits by two-thirds, from $600 a week to $200. In fact, that?s so cruel and inadequate that it?s hard to see how Democrats could go along. So we?re entering a new phase of the Covid-19 crisis, this time brought on by blinkered economic ideology. And it fits the pattern. Every time you look at the havoc wrought by the pandemic and think ?Well, things could be worse,? America?s right takes action to ensure that things do, in fact, get worse. Continue reading the main story <#m_-8651966535960715451_a11y-skip-2> ADVERTISEMENT Quick Hits How unemployment benefits helped sustain the economy , from the socialists at JPMorgan. Unemployment benefits don?t seem to have deterred workers from accepting jobs. No, really, they didn?t . We should give more honor to Frances Perkins , the mother of American unemployment insurance. Feedback If you?re enjoying what you?re reading, please consider recommending it to friends. They can sign up here . If you want to share your thoughts on an item in this week?s newsletter or on the newsletter in general, please email me at krugman-newsletter at nytimes.com . Facing the Music It?s a cruel, cruel summerYouTube This summer is ending on a grim note. May next summer be better. IN THE TIMES ?That?s Ridiculous.? How America?s Coronavirus Response Looks Abroad. >From lockdowns to testing, we showed people around the world the facts and figures on how the U.S. has handled the pandemic. By Brendan Miller and Adam Westbrook [image: Article Thumbnail] How Local Covid Deaths Are Affecting Vote Choice A rise in coronavirus-related deaths in a given community tends to reduce support for Republicans. By Lynn Vavreck and Christopher Warshaw [image: Article Thumbnail] Italy Is Slowly Waking From the Nightmare This is a very strange, subdued summer for a country with an economy that relies heavily on tourism and merrymaking. But E.U. aid is on the way. By Beppe Severgnini [image: Article Thumbnail] ?It?s Like Groundhog Day?: Coronavirus Testing Labs Again Lack Key Supplies Just weeks after resolving shortages in swabs, researchers are struggling to find the chemicals and plastic pieces they need to carry out coronavirus tests in the lab ? leading to long waiting times. By Katherine J. Wu [image: Article Thumbnail] Read the full Opinion report here. Continue reading the main story <#m_-8651966535960715451_a11y-skip-3> Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for Paul Krugman from The New York Times. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences . Subscribe to The Times Get The New York Times app Connect with us on: [image: facebook] [image: twitter] [image: instagram] Change Your Email Privacy Policy Contact Us California Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 17:53:08 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 10:53:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 6:12 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 8:50 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Now will somebody tell me what made the puzzle so hard? Aside from a >> minor wording that Will caught, which I have to think didn't confuse >> anyone, how could the puzzle be presented better? >> > > You were looking for one particular answer. You got several valid answers. > > The situation you envisioned is pretty contrived: most faucets are easily > adjustable to control the rate of flow. > > You said "half full" when you really meant "partially full". Half, in this > case, is overly specific and misleading. > This, pretty much. Also, water being poured in with enough force that fully half the glass is air suggests a more secure & stable glass than typical. I'd be worried about the glass toppling and breaking, if it was a typical drinking glass. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 18:19:29 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 14:19:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_Zombies_are_stalking_America=E2=80=99s_un?= =?utf-8?q?employed?= In-Reply-To: References: <70.85.14618.9D2502F5@bk.mta2vrest.cc.prd.sparkpost> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 12:42 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Any of you conservatives out there care to give an opinion of Krugmans' > column? > It's pretty funny and accurate, under the current fiscal policies the U.S. is living under. But those policies are so out-of-whack that debating $600/week vs. $200/week amounts to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. $260 billion of the $2.2 trillion CARES act was this unemployment insurance. A measly $500 billion spent toward pandemic preparation could have saved many more lives and jobs. We're a country run by crooks and morons. Until we fix that there's no point bickering about how much unemployment insurance we provide. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robot at ultimax.com Tue Jul 28 18:53:07 2020 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 14:53:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2d8aacae711dd526a73ac2136f734dce@ultimax.com> Over three decades ago, Keith and I shared a good laugh at a comic strip by Matt Groening, before /Simpsons/ fame): "Akbar and Jeff's Cryonics Hut--where the Elite Beat the Heat and Avoid Having to Meet St.Pete" (wiht a nice comparison of traditional burial (downsides: "chunks missing, wormy") vs. head-in-a-cryonic-jar ("looking good!"). The one and only time I ever wrote for /Mondo 2000/ was a report from the field at the First General Conference on Nanotechnology held in Palo ALto in Nov 1992, per request of "St.Jude". See Mondo issue #9, Feb'93. Some cross-dresser on the cover, IIRC, as opposed to that spectacular Italian astrophysicist the month before. I was being cagey and used a /nom de plume/ but I needn't have bothered. As I've said before, a couple of books I read at that time changed my worldview. Vinge's /Marooned in Realtime/ and the short story "The Ungoverned". Drexler's /Engines of Creation/ was another. A year later, when I was interviewing for my Fellowship (ended up working for the Space Subcommittee), I was citing those books, and Scott Pace (then at RAND in DC) hilariously tagged me as a "robo-Marxist". It was almost correct... K3 On 2020-07-28 00:23, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:22:13 -0400 > From: Dylan Distasio > Keith, I was just having a little fun with the head in the jar comment. . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [snip] > When I read Drexler's book many years ago in my much younger days, it > absolutely blew my mind and got me more interested in futurism than I > already was (BTW, does anyone else miss Mondo 2000 around here?!). I > have . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > to say though, I'm a bit disappointed how far away we seem to remain > from > Drexler's vision of nanotechnology. From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 20:46:26 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 15:46:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: OK, thanks. I am fairly new at making up puzzles and need all the feedback I can get. Is there any way to salvage this one by rewording it? bill w On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 12:55 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 6:12 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 8:50 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Now will somebody tell me what made the puzzle so hard? Aside from a >>> minor wording that Will caught, which I have to think didn't confuse >>> anyone, how could the puzzle be presented better? >>> >> >> You were looking for one particular answer. You got several valid answers. >> >> The situation you envisioned is pretty contrived: most faucets are easily >> adjustable to control the rate of flow. >> >> You said "half full" when you really meant "partially full". Half, in >> this case, is overly specific and misleading. >> > > This, pretty much. Also, water being poured in with enough force that > fully half the glass is air suggests a more secure & stable glass than > typical. I'd be worried about the glass toppling and breaking, if it was a > typical drinking glass. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 21:34:02 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 17:34:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate Message-ID: The following is from the July 10 issue of the journal Science and shows just how far Donald Trump is willing to corrupt science just so he doesn't have to admit he was wrong: NOAA watchdog chides agency for how it handled Hurricane Dorian?s ?Sharpiegate? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Tue Jul 28 23:11:52 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 16:11:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Red light for aging eyes Message-ID: <20200728161152.Horde.PO1CctnQnro56iqh6nCPaPk@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Keith Henson: > That's already happening. Like my Mom, I developed age-related > macular degeneration at about the same age. She went more or less > blind, could not read, a disaster since she was an author. Lately there has been a lot of chatter about photobiomudulation therapy using 670 nm deep-red/ near-infrared light to halt and even reverse age related damage to the retina such as AMD, glaucoma, and RP. I think the consensus theory about how it works is that it stimulates mitochondria to fight oxidative stress in the photoreceptor cells of the retina, preventing them from dying. Here are some links to the science: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/4/1001/pdf https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200629120241.htm https://joovv.com/blogs/joovv-blog/red-light-therapy-protecting-healing-eyes-preventing-vision-loss A few days ago, I hooked up a 40W 660nm deep red LED light bulb sold as a plant grow light in my room and I have been using it as my reading lamp for a few minutes every night before bed. The 670nm therapy bulbs cost hundreds of dollars, but the 660nm grow light cost me $40 with shipping on Amazon. The spectral width of LEDs is about 50nm so I am getting plenty of 670nm light at a bargain price. The results haven't been dramatic but I had not been diagnosed with anything prior so it is more a preventative for me than anything else. Plus I think it takes about two weeks for the effects to become really noticeable. But so far it has made my eyes feel more "comfortable" and I haven't gotten any migraines since I started using it so I will report back in a couple of weeks. Stuart LaForge From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 22:36:58 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 15:36:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you reword it very very strictly to exclude all the alternative answers, maybe. "You were looking for one particular answer. You got several valid answers." is the biggest problem you encountered. Just because you're only thinking of one answer doesn't mean the other answers aren't correct too - and the standard is, any correct answer should be acceptable. As mentioned, start with using "partially full" instead of "half full", and maybe use "container, open only at the top" instead of "glass". Think through each one of the other answers you were given, to see how you can reword to specify in advance that that is not the solution either. On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 1:48 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > OK, thanks. I am fairly new at making up puzzles and need all the feedback > I can get. Is there any way to salvage this one by rewording it? bill w > > On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 12:55 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 6:12 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 8:50 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Now will somebody tell me what made the puzzle so hard? Aside from a >>>> minor wording that Will caught, which I have to think didn't confuse >>>> anyone, how could the puzzle be presented better? >>>> >>> >>> You were looking for one particular answer. You got several valid >>> answers. >>> >>> The situation you envisioned is pretty contrived: most faucets are >>> easily adjustable to control the rate of flow. >>> >>> You said "half full" when you really meant "partially full". Half, in >>> this case, is overly specific and misleading. >>> >> >> This, pretty much. Also, water being poured in with enough force that >> fully half the glass is air suggests a more secure & stable glass than >> typical. I'd be worried about the glass toppling and breaking, if it was a >> typical drinking glass. >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 22:25:52 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 18:25:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Duh. The man is an clown. And a narcissist. And stupid. That's what voting is for. Are you part of an initiative to get out the vote against Trump? If not, why are you spending your time trying to convince an insular community of only 10-20 members? There are better uses of that time if you want to beat Trump. On Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 17:35 John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The following is from the July 10 issue of the journal Science and shows > just how far Donald Trump is willing to corrupt science just so he doesn't > have to admit he was wrong: > > NOAA watchdog chides agency for how it handled Hurricane Dorian?s > ?Sharpiegate? > > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 23:28:32 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 18:28:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks, Adrian. I will be a bit more careful next time. bill w On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 6:21 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > If you reword it very very strictly to exclude all the alternative > answers, maybe. > > "You were looking for one particular answer. You got several valid > answers." is the biggest problem you encountered. Just because you're only > thinking of one answer doesn't mean the other answers aren't correct too - > and the standard is, any correct answer should be acceptable. > > As mentioned, start with using "partially full" instead of "half full", > and maybe use "container, open only at the top" instead of "glass". Think > through each one of the other answers you were given, to see how you can > reword to specify in advance that that is not the solution either. > > On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 1:48 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> OK, thanks. I am fairly new at making up puzzles and need all >> the feedback I can get. Is there any way to salvage this one by rewording >> it? bill w >> >> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 12:55 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 6:12 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 8:50 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Now will somebody tell me what made the puzzle so hard? Aside from a >>>>> minor wording that Will caught, which I have to think didn't confuse >>>>> anyone, how could the puzzle be presented better? >>>>> >>>> >>>> You were looking for one particular answer. You got several valid >>>> answers. >>>> >>>> The situation you envisioned is pretty contrived: most faucets are >>>> easily adjustable to control the rate of flow. >>>> >>>> You said "half full" when you really meant "partially full". Half, in >>>> this case, is overly specific and misleading. >>>> >>> >>> This, pretty much. Also, water being poured in with enough force that >>> fully half the glass is air suggests a more secure & stable glass than >>> typical. I'd be worried about the glass toppling and breaking, if it was a >>> typical drinking glass. >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jul 29 00:13:05 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 17:13:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Red light for aging eyes In-Reply-To: <20200728161152.Horde.PO1CctnQnro56iqh6nCPaPk@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200728161152.Horde.PO1CctnQnro56iqh6nCPaPk@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <85618b9b-409a-d556-e9bc-0f17ec1218f0@pobox.com> On 2020-7-28 16:11, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > A few days ago, I hooked up a 40W 660nm deep red LED light bulb sold > as a plant grow light in my room and I have been using it as my > reading lamp for a few minutes every night before bed. Romana Machado iirc used a secondhand red traffic light for a similar purpose. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From sen.otaku at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 06:11:28 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 01:11:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Ancient & Viable Message-ID: <778E10F6-1F77-41C7-BA79-FC4B46503562@gmail.com> TITLE: Deep sea microbes dormant for 100 million years are hungry and ready to multiply https://phys.org/news/2020-07-deep-sea-microbes-dormant-million.html Basically, the title says it all. Pretty cool, huh? SR Ballard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 06:40:56 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 01:40:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <61084542-334A-42A8-A80D-23AF19177AEA@gmail.com> Message-ID: <897E80D4-7707-4E75-A044-B0D5E756753C@gmail.com> Maybe not frozen steam, but: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencealert.com/exotic-form-of-water-ice-is-half-as-hot-as-the-sun-and-it-s-just-been-created-here-on-earth/amp SR Ballard > On Jul 27, 2020, at 9:07 PM, Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 9:23 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> Ah yes, the good old ?it?s being filled with both air and water!? > > > Or the glass is already 50% volume with rocks or sand (small rocks) or mercury or any other displacement that prevents more than 50% water to fill the glass regardless of how much more water is available. > > We could probably get spike to figure out how much energy it would take to completely separate the water via electrolysis at exactly the output of the faucet. Likely the heat generated will cause sufficient steam pressure that will prevent water from reaching the glass. So much to consider there with diameter and height of the glass, average temperature of water coming out of the faucet, mineral content of the water, efficiency and durability of the anode+cathode, and whether there are easier ways to explode yourself. > > How "full of water" is a glass at various temperatures and pressures? Is it possible to form ice above boiling point with high enough pressure? That sounds like a fantasy game quest: frozen steam. >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 11:43:12 2020 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 07:43:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] puzzle In-Reply-To: <897E80D4-7707-4E75-A044-B0D5E756753C@gmail.com> References: <6efa1948e51da2af5be6906eade207f4.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <61084542-334A-42A8-A80D-23AF19177AEA@gmail.com> <897E80D4-7707-4E75-A044-B0D5E756753C@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 2:43 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Maybe not frozen steam, but: > https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencealert.com/exotic-form-of-water-ice-is-half-as-hot-as-the-sun-and-it-s-just-been-created-here-on-earth/amp > That's awesome. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 11:53:06 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 07:53:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> Duh. The man is an clown. And a narcissist. And stupid. That's what > voting is for.* Yes the man is obviously a clown, but for reasons I've never understood that fact was not obvious to most members of this list in 2016, far *FAR* more criticism was directed at Hillary Clinton than at Donald Trump (ah, I remember the good old days when we were young and na?ve and so many thought the misuse of Hillary Clinton's email server was the most horrible thing a politician could do). Although I don't know it for a fact I wouldn't be surprised if most ended up voting for Trump rather than for the only woman that had a snowball's chance in hell of stopping him, or they didn't vote at all (or voted for a third-party nonentity which is equivalent to not voting). And meanwhile just yesterday Trump was back on national television pushing a quack cure for COVID-19 (hydroxychloroquine) on millions of Americans and using as his "very impressive evidence" testimony of a doctor who believes facemasks are unnecessary, and many illnesses are caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches, and the COVID-19 vaccines in development are made of DNA from space alien's demon sperm to make people less religious. And you think the fact that the most powerful man in the world believes in this shit is not worth commenting on. The good doctor also believes the US government is not run by human beings but by creatures called "reptilians"... come to think of it ... she may not be entirely wrong on that last point. *> There are better uses of that time if you want to beat Trump.* And there are much better uses of your time than in writing a screed denouncing an anti-Trump post! John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 14:00:04 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 10:00:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 7:54 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > And there are much better uses of your time than in writing a screed > denouncing an anti-Trump post! > Perhaps, but given equal weighting to our time in a vacuum, and since I don't respond to every since Trump post you make, I am wasting less time than you. THUS, I claim the moral high ground. As well, since you are the progenitor of these posts, I make the claim that any post in reply is actually time wasted by YOU! ;) And since you have made probably hundreds of said posts, I am only trying to prevent further waste as such, which is more of a waste than the time I am wasting by replying, because like I said, you do it more, and you are the progenitor anyway. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 14:10:12 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 10:10:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 10:03 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>And there are much better uses of your time than in writing a screed >> denouncing an anti-Trump post! >> > > *> Perhaps, but given equal weighting to our time in a vacuum, and since I > don't respond to every since Trump post you make, I am wasting less time > than you*. > But if you didn't respond you wouldn't be wasting any time at all. I eagerly await your response to this so you can teach us more about how not to waste time. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jul 29 15:20:26 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 08:20:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2020-7-29 04:53, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > Yes the man is obviously a clown, but for reasons I've never understood > that fact was not obvious to most members of this list in 2016, far > *FAR* more criticism was directed at Hillary Clinton than at Donald > Trump Perhaps because after one said "Trump is a crook and a buffoon" the subject was exhausted? > (ah, I remember the good old days when we were young and na?ve and > so many thought the misuse of Hillary Clinton's email server was the > most horrible thing a politician could do). It's not the magnitude of her offenses, it's the hypocrisy of her defenders in dismissing it, putting her above the law, when others have been court-martialed for less. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 16:19:16 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 11:19:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am sure you know 'preaching to the choir'. What happens when you do that? The choir rolls their eyes and can't believe you are doing it again - and that's wasting time for everyone, including you, John It's one thing to have an obsession. It's another to bother others with it. bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 9:15 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 10:03 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >>And there are much better uses of your time than in writing a screed >>> denouncing an anti-Trump post! >>> >> >> *> Perhaps, but given equal weighting to our time in a vacuum, and since >> I don't respond to every since Trump post you make, I am wasting less time >> than you*. >> > > But if you didn't respond you wouldn't be wasting any time at all. I > eagerly await your response to this so you can teach us more about how not > to waste time. > > John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 16:51:49 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 12:51:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 12:21 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> you are doing it again - and that's wasting time for everyone, including > you* Back in 2016 lots of people on this list, including you, told me I was wasting my time when I talked about Trump, and I guess you were right because I was unable to convince anybody not to throw their vote away on somebody who has zero chance of stopping this lunatic, a fool who is powerful enough to kill everybody on this list and everybody they know in the next 15 minutes. And now, judging from all the flack I get whenever I say anything negative about POTUS, it looks like many are going to make the exact same disastrous mistake again in 2020. I sincerely hope my prediction turns out to be dead wrong. By the way, just a few days ago somebody started a thread about Flying Saucers and how "*Element 115 when exposed to radiation generates its own antigravitational field which is then amplified and directionalized*". How come nobody complained about wasting time on that crap? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 17:00:00 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 10:00:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 9:54 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > By the way, just a few days ago somebody started a thread about Flying > Saucers and how "*Element 115 when exposed to radiation generates its own > antigravitational field which is then amplified and directionalized*". > How come nobody complained about wasting time on that crap? > I did. Granted, I emphasized more my objection to the appeal to authority used to justify that crap. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 17:03:04 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 12:03:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > By the way, just a few days ago somebody started a thread about Flying > Saucers and how "*Element 115 when exposed to radiation generates its own > antigravitational field which is then amplified and directionalized*". > How come nobody complained about wasting time on that crap? > > John K Clark > John, because it was something different. If I had to bet, I'd bet that no one in this group voted for Trump, except perhaps Rafal. Preaching to the choir. If you were ever going to convince anyone to change their mind, you would have done so by now, don't you think? bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 17:04:04 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:04:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:02 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 9:54 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> By the way, just a few days ago somebody started a thread about Flying >> Saucers and how "*Element 115 when exposed to radiation generates its >> own antigravitational field which is then amplified and directionalized*". >> How come nobody complained about wasting time on that crap? >> > > > I did. > I stand corrected. Sorry. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 17:21:04 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:21:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:09 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Preaching to the choir. The choir would've tried to stop the devil with their vote, but I know how you voted, you told us; I've forgotten the guy's name, the world has forgotten the Bozo's name too, but I'm sure it wasn't Hillary Clinton. So you're clearly not in the choir, or at least you weren't in 2016. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 17:28:33 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 10:28:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate Message-ID: John Clark wrote: snip > Although I don't know it for a fact I wouldn't be surprised if most ended up voting for Trump The only effective votes for Trump were in the states that went for him. I doubt there are many on this list (if any) who live in such places. Over 30 years ago, I asked (but could not answer then) the question of why economic downturns were associated with upsurges of far-right neo-Nazi activity. The places where people voted for him were largely places where the economic activity has been hollowed out, jobs shipped out of the country. Ultimately, you can blame this on the Harvard model of how to run a business, a SCOTUS decision, and the humble shipping container. Keith From sen.otaku at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 18:28:35 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:28:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? Message-ID: As a fun, informal poll, I?d like to ask the following questions: Is your state a swing-state, or is it considered a ?grab? for a party? Is your county or city politically aligned with your state, or does it face the ?opposite? way? In political elections, Does you vote actually influence anything on a state level? County? City? Or are you caught voting very hard against the tide? For myself: I live in Texas, solidly Red. I live in San Antonio, generally Blue. My vote matters for local offices but not anything past the County, and maybe not even then. From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jul 29 18:48:27 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 11:48:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0344fb17-6de8-ba18-f6bc-8fd681cc7e13@pobox.com> Remember, kids, in the long term the Biparty must die, but in the short term it must be supported at all costs. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 18:57:59 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:57:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't know what you mean by my not being in the choir. I have been as against Trump (never mind the other Repubs, whom I disdain as well) as it is possible to be ever since I had the slightest knowledge of him. Probably as near a psychopath as any president we have ever had (and never mind the other psychiatric designations I could apply.) Where do you get your ideas, anyway? Not from anything I said. bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 12:23 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:09 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Preaching to the choir. > > > The choir would've tried to stop the devil with their vote, but I know > how you voted, you told us; I've forgotten the guy's name, the world has > forgotten the Bozo's name too, but I'm sure it wasn't Hillary Clinton. So > you're clearly not in the choir, or at least you weren't in 2016. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:00:11 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 15:00:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think he's confusing you with Spike. And in any case, Spike voted in CA so his vote was meaningless and he was free to vote for Johnson On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 2:58 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I don't know what you mean by my not being in the choir. I have been as > against Trump (never mind the other Repubs, whom I disdain as well) as it > is possible to be ever since I had the slightest knowledge of him. > Probably as near a psychopath as any president we have ever had (and never > mind the other psychiatric designations I could apply.) Where do you get > your ideas, anyway? Not from anything I said. bill w > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 12:23 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:09 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> > Preaching to the choir. >> >> >> The choir would've tried to stop the devil with their vote, but I know >> how you voted, you told us; I've forgotten the guy's name, the world has >> forgotten the Bozo's name too, but I'm sure it wasn't Hillary Clinton. So >> you're clearly not in the choir, or at least you weren't in 2016. >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:03:19 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 14:03:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am in Mississippi (only because of my children and grandchildren). We will vote blindly for an Republican, except in the Delta, where majority black voters will vote Democrat. bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:30 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > As a fun, informal poll, I?d like to ask the following questions: > > Is your state a swing-state, or is it considered a ?grab? for a party? > > Is your county or city politically aligned with your state, or does it > face the ?opposite? way? > > In political elections, Does you vote actually influence anything on a > state level? County? City? Or are you caught voting very hard against the > tide? > > For myself: > I live in Texas, solidly Red. I live in San Antonio, generally Blue. My > vote matters for local offices but not anything past the County, and maybe > not even then. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:09:47 2020 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 15:09:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 2:30 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > As a fun, informal poll, I?d like to ask the following questions: > > Is your state a swing-state, or is it considered a ?grab? for a party? > Red state lock. Is your county or city politically aligned with your state, or does it face > the ?opposite? way? > Aligned. In political elections, Does you vote actually influence anything on a > state level? County? City? Or are you caught voting very hard against the > tide? > Against the tide, especially because I'm libertarian. :-) For myself: > I live in Texas, solidly Red. I live in San Antonio, generally Blue. My > vote matters for local offices but not anything past the County, and maybe > not even then. > Trump and Biden are polling nearly even in TX, so that could change. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:18:30 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 12:18:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm in California, where the Presidential vote is solidly Democratic. Santa Clara County and Mountain View are nonpartisan races - as, IMO, should be anything under the state level (and arguably the higher level races too, but that's a separate debate). Even the city races around here are rarely close. On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 11:30 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > As a fun, informal poll, I?d like to ask the following questions: > > Is your state a swing-state, or is it considered a ?grab? for a party? > > Is your county or city politically aligned with your state, or does it > face the ?opposite? way? > > In political elections, Does you vote actually influence anything on a > state level? County? City? Or are you caught voting very hard against the > tide? > > For myself: > I live in Texas, solidly Red. I live in San Antonio, generally Blue. My > vote matters for local offices but not anything past the County, and maybe > not even then. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:18:41 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 15:18:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 3:00 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I don't know what you mean by my not being in the choir. I have been as > against Trump (never mind the other Repubs, whom I disdain as well) as it > is possible to be > No you were not, if you were you wouldn't have thrown your vote away in 2016. But we all make mistakes, my question is are you going to make the same mistake again in 2020? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:45:47 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 12:45:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Seattle, WA, so solid blue in a solid blue city and county. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jul 29, 2020, at 11:30 AM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?As a fun, informal poll, I?d like to ask the following questions: > > Is your state a swing-state, or is it considered a ?grab? for a party? > > Is your county or city politically aligned with your state, or does it face the ?opposite? way? > > In political elections, Does you vote actually influence anything on a state level? County? City? Or are you caught voting very hard against the tide? > > For myself: > I live in Texas, solidly Red. I live in San Antonio, generally Blue. My vote matters for local offices but not anything past the County, and maybe not even then. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jul 29 20:25:44 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:25:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <285ca2df-5fc8-fe22-19da-4696314f683d@pobox.com> > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 3:00 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> I have been as against Trump (never mind the other Repubs, whom I >> disdain as well) as it is possible to be On 2020-7-29 12:18, John Clark wrote: > No you were not, if you were you wouldn't have thrown your vote away > in 2016. In the old days, defining another's sincerity by one's own criteria would, I think, have been frowned on. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 20:27:00 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:27:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think this stuff about how it's OK to throw away your vote if you're in certain states is nuts for two reasons: 1) We're talking about life and death here, and it's crazy to make such a momentous decision based on polls, especially when you consider how wrong the polls were in 2016. 2) Regardless of how the November 3 election turns out this nation will face a constitutional crisis on November 4 because it's virtually certain Trump will claim the election was fake, and he is never going to relinquish power without a fight. I don't know if Trump's power grab will be successful, it depends on how many of his cronies go along with him, but the larger the popular vote runs against him the less moral authority he will have, and maybe that will prevent the military from throwing in with him and they will decide to remain loyal to the constitution. It's the only hope we have. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 20:34:46 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:34:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: <285ca2df-5fc8-fe22-19da-4696314f683d@pobox.com> References: <285ca2df-5fc8-fe22-19da-4696314f683d@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 4:28 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: * > In the old days, defining another's sincerity by one's own criteria > would, I think, have been frowned on.* > Sincerity is a vastly overrated virtue, I'd rather somebody be insincerely right than sincerely wrong. And in the old days this list frowned upon anti-libertarianism, but those days are long gone. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 20:41:33 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:41:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: #1 is more often based on extensive, repeated history than polls that are more likely to be off. #2 is a fair point, though: the absolute popular vote may count, even from "safe" states. On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:33 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I think this stuff about how it's OK to throw away your vote if you're in > certain states is nuts for two reasons: > > 1) We're talking about life and death here, and it's crazy to make such a > momentous decision based on polls, especially when you consider how wrong > the polls were in 2016. > > 2) Regardless of how the November 3 election turns out this nation will > face a constitutional crisis on November 4 because it's virtually certain > Trump will claim the election was fake, and he is never going to > relinquish power without a fight. I don't know if Trump's power grab will > be successful, it depends on how many of his cronies go along with him, but > the larger the popular vote runs against him the less moral authority he > will have, and maybe that will prevent the military from throwing in with > him and they will decide to remain loyal to the constitution. It's the only > hope we have. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jul 29 21:14:08 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 14:14:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7060dd62-551e-5175-dfa6-c1de919790d6@pobox.com> > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:33 PM John Clark wrote: >> I think this stuff about how it's OK to throw away your vote >> if you're in certain states is nuts for two reasons: >> [...] >> 2) [...] it's virtually certain Trump will claim the election was >> fake, and he is never going to relinquish power without a fight. >> [....] the larger the popular vote runs against him the less moral >> authority he will have, [...] On 2020-7-29 13:41, Adrian Tymes wrote: [...] > #2 is a fair point, though: the absolute popular vote may count, > even from "safe" states. Seems to me that a vote for a minor party (presumably more sincere than tactical) counts at least as much as a vote for the Donkey in measuring Trump's unpopularity. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From nuala.t at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 21:58:26 2020 From: nuala.t at gmail.com (Nuala Thomson) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 07:58:26 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: <7060dd62-551e-5175-dfa6-c1de919790d6@pobox.com> References: <7060dd62-551e-5175-dfa6-c1de919790d6@pobox.com> Message-ID: In Australia I tend to vote Greens, which will never run parliament/make Prime Minister due to its lack of members, but because I live in a regional town. We have the Great Barrier Reef to the east, the protected Daintree Rainforest north, and rainforest everywhere else around us, and the local council does not give any fucks about the endangered wildlife that live in our areas. So I vote Greens purely so there is some fight in councils and parliament against doing anything that is going to drive our endangered animals towards extinction. Without them, our politicians would go unchecked and everything would die or be destroyed. *Greens being our hippies that became politicians. Your Democrat/Republican parties would be closest related to our Labour/Liberal parties. 2 party systems suck. On Thu., Jul. 30, 2020, 07:16 Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat, < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:33 PM John Clark wrote: > >> I think this stuff about how it's OK to throw away your vote > >> if you're in certain states is nuts for two reasons: > >> [...] > >> 2) [...] it's virtually certain Trump will claim the election was > >> fake, and he is never going to relinquish power without a fight. > >> [....] the larger the popular vote runs against him the less moral > >> authority he will have, [...] > > On 2020-7-29 13:41, Adrian Tymes wrote: [...] > > #2 is a fair point, though: the absolute popular vote may count, > > even from "safe" states. > > Seems to me that a vote for a minor party (presumably more sincere than > tactical) counts at least as much as a vote for the Donkey in measuring > Trump's unpopularity. > > -- > *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 22:00:11 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 17:00:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: John, I did not even vote in 2016, and am not going to vote this time either. Waste of time.. No point in it. And if you are going to call me a liar then we are no longer friends. bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 2:29 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 3:00 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > I don't know what you mean by my not being in the choir. I have been >> as against Trump (never mind the other Repubs, whom I disdain as well) as >> it is possible to be >> > > No you were not, if you were you wouldn't have thrown your vote away in > 2016. But we all make mistakes, my question is are you going to make the > same mistake again in 2020? > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robot at ultimax.com Wed Jul 29 21:53:52 2020 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 17:53:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] the "humble Conex" box (was Re: Sharpiegate) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <35798e908dff9f2cb41abb9e5a0d8682@ultimax.com> Put those items in reverse order and you'll have their correct importance, Keith. In the first edition of "Where To?" in 1950 Robert A Heinlein wrote something like "there is some device, new but seemingly humble, that will change the world. We just don't know which." At the time he thought it was the transistor, but by the time of the second edition in 1965, he dismissed that as trivial forecast, but said the mystery device was still out there, unidentified. RAH revisited his predictions one more time, in /Expanded Universe/ (1980). RAH was almost on time in 1950. I think the "device" was the "humble shipping container" as Keith puts it. For starters, the Conex box created modern China. Remember the proverb that was attributed to Trotsky? "You may not be interested in War, but War is interested in you." He was channeling Nietzsche, who said, "if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." Well, container shipping is like that. Sure you can more easily export your goods to the world, but that sword cuts both ways--the entire world can reach into your front door. My late father Robt. Kennedy Jr. was third ass't engineer on the N.S. Savannah maiden voyage and ~5 yrs after. Regrettably, the most advanced break-bulk cargo ship in the world at the time she was designed, 1956, she was obsolete before she slipped down the ways to the water in 1960 or so. For Malcolm McLean invented the shipping container and built the first containership, the S.S. Ideal X in 1956. Ironic, that. When the president of the longshoreman's union saw the S.S. Ideal X on her first sea trial with a load of boxes and was asked at dockside for his feelings about the event by a reporter, he replied "I'd like to sink that son of a b*tch". Honest answer at any rate. So much shrinkage went "poof" altering forever the most corrupt violent mafia-infested labor union in America. (Which was McLean's real motive for inventing it.) Later on, my old man left the Savannah and went to work for McLean himself, driving what was then the first true and biggest containership in the world, the S.S. Elizabethport. K3 On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 10:28:33 -0700, Keith Henson replied to John Clark: [snip] > The only effective votes for Trump were in the states that went for > him. I doubt there are many on this list (if any) who live in such > places. > > Over 30 years ago, I asked (but could not answer then) the question of > why economic downturns were associated with upsurges of far-right > neo-Nazi activity. The places where people voted for him were largely > places where the economic activity has been hollowed out, jobs shipped > out of the country. > > Ultimately, you can blame this on the Harvard model of how to run a > business, a SCOTUS decision, and the humble shipping container. . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 22:05:33 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 15:05:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Solar panels and dope Message-ID: >From Slashdot Helmand Province in Afghanistan produces two thirds of the world's opium. Its opium production has more than doubled in the past eight years, due mostly to solar power. "Solar is by far the most significant technological change" in the region for decades, says Dr. Mansfield, author of the report (PDF). The first solar panels were introduced there in 2013. More recently, solar panel installations have doubled every year, and now stand at 67,000. In Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand Province, solar panels are stacked in the market in great piles three stories high. For an up-front cost of $5,000, farmers can buy panels and a pump to irrigate their fields, and then there are virtually no running costs. "All this water is making the desert bloom," says Richard Brittan, a former British soldier whose company, Alcis, specializes in satellite analysis of what he calls "complex environments." $5,000 is a lot of money -- the average dowry is $7,000 -- but the panels pay for themselves within two years. Farmers used to rely on diesel, which was more costly, unreliable and adulterated, which led to frequent machinery breakdowns. This "is perhaps the purest example of capitalism on the planet. There are no subsidies here. Nobody is thinking about climate change -- or any other ethical consideration, for that matter. This is about small-scale entrepreneurs trying to make a profit. It is the story of how Afghan opium growers have switched to solar power, and significantly increased the world supply of heroin. What does this tell us about solar power? That is simple. The story of the revolution in Afghan heroin production shows us just how transformative solar power can be. Don't imagine this is some kind of benign 'green' technology. "Solar is getting so cheap that it is capable of changing the way we do things in fundamental ways and with consequences that can affect the entire world," reports the BBC. (Those consequences: far more opium in the world; water table dropping by 3m a year; and a major crisis brewing in 10-15 years when the water runs out, the land returns to desert, and 1.5 million people are forced to migrate.) Keith From robot at ultimax.com Wed Jul 29 22:07:50 2020 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 18:07:50 -0400 Subject: [ExI] speaking of the world reaching in, how about those seed packets from China? WTF? Message-ID: some say this mystery-seeds-from-China thing is just some fraudsters' scams exploiting a bug in Amazon. Or that it's "Gaslighting" (A word I don?t use often enough-somehow I managed to grow up without seeing the Ingrid Bergman movie so I missed that meme.) The fraud seems like a stretch to me. Also I know that Asian "murder hornets" showed up out of the blue in the Pacific Northwest this winter. So I've been having unsettling thoughts about clandestine bio-warfare or eco-sabotage. Being a good SF reader and engineer, the very first thing thought of, after the echoes of "WTF?" died away, was a certain classic SF short story from 70 years ago. So, speaking of old memes, we're about to enter what used to be called "the silly season" (old print newspapermen's term for the slow period in late summer when anything could make the front page for lack of serious news). This idea was ingeniously turned into a sci-fi-horror story, something I *did manage to read* as a kid, "The Silly Season" by the inestimable Cyril M. Kornbluth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season#References . Heinlein thought it was good enough to include in one of the anthologies he rarely edited, /Tomorrow, The Stars/ (1952). It may have inspired RAH's own "Year of the Jackpot" that same year. In politics, the "Silly Season" is often followed by the "October Surprise". K3 From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 22:14:01 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 17:14:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: <7060dd62-551e-5175-dfa6-c1de919790d6@pobox.com> Message-ID: Extremely interesting. Where do you know of a one party system outside of a communist country that works better than a two party one? We have one unicameral legislature, Nebraska I think. I don't know how well that works. Anyway, glad to hear from Down Under. Let us hear more from you! I am very glad to hear that you are a Green. Perhaps what we need is a third party: Green. bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 5:00 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > In Australia I tend to vote Greens, which will never run parliament/make > Prime Minister due to its lack of members, but because I live in a regional > town. We have the Great Barrier Reef to the east, the protected Daintree > Rainforest north, and rainforest everywhere else around us, and the local > council does not give any fucks about the endangered wildlife that live in > our areas. So I vote Greens purely so there is some fight in councils and > parliament against doing anything that is going to drive our endangered > animals towards extinction. Without them, our politicians would go > unchecked and everything would die or be destroyed. > *Greens being our hippies that became politicians. > Your Democrat/Republican parties would be closest related to our > Labour/Liberal parties. > 2 party systems suck. > > On Thu., Jul. 30, 2020, 07:16 Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat, < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:33 PM John Clark wrote: >> >> I think this stuff about how it's OK to throw away your vote >> >> if you're in certain states is nuts for two reasons: >> >> [...] >> >> 2) [...] it's virtually certain Trump will claim the election was >> >> fake, and he is never going to relinquish power without a fight. >> >> [....] the larger the popular vote runs against him the less moral >> >> authority he will have, [...] >> >> On 2020-7-29 13:41, Adrian Tymes wrote: [...] >> > #2 is a fair point, though: the absolute popular vote may count, >> > even from "safe" states. >> >> Seems to me that a vote for a minor party (presumably more sincere than >> tactical) counts at least as much as a vote for the Donkey in measuring >> Trump's unpopularity. >> >> -- >> *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 22:54:17 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 15:54:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6B8F4AF5-B225-4D95-B23D-8C52E5A08624@gmail.com> I believe what you meant to point out is that Nebraska has an officially nonpartisan legislature. (Yeah, it?s unicameral, but that only means it has one chamber ? not that it has one or no parties.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jul 29, 2020, at 3:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > ? > Extremely interesting. Where do you know of a one party system outside of a communist country that works better than a two party one? We have one unicameral legislature, Nebraska I think. I don't know how well that works. > > Anyway, glad to hear from Down Under. Let us hear more from you! I am very glad to hear that you are a Green. Perhaps what we need is a third party: Green. bill w > >> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 5:00 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat wrote: >> In Australia I tend to vote Greens, which will never run parliament/make Prime Minister due to its lack of members, but because I live in a regional town. We have the Great Barrier Reef to the east, the protected Daintree Rainforest north, and rainforest everywhere else around us, and the local council does not give any fucks about the endangered wildlife that live in our areas. So I vote Greens purely so there is some fight in councils and parliament against doing anything that is going to drive our endangered animals towards extinction. Without them, our politicians would go unchecked and everything would die or be destroyed. >> *Greens being our hippies that became politicians. >> Your Democrat/Republican parties would be closest related to our Labour/Liberal parties. >> 2 party systems suck. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 00:07:01 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 20:07:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I wish I could tag Rafal here lol. I vehemently disagree with almost everything he says but he provides a great foil to JKC. Activating the Rafal signal now On Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 18:05 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > John, I did not even vote in 2016, and am not going to vote this time > either. Waste of time.. No point in it. And if you are going to call me > a liar then we are no longer friends. bill w > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 2:29 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 3:00 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> > I don't know what you mean by my not being in the choir. I have been >>> as against Trump (never mind the other Repubs, whom I disdain as well) as >>> it is possible to be >>> >> >> No you were not, if you were you wouldn't have thrown your vote away in >> 2016. But we all make mistakes, my question is are you going to make the >> same mistake again in 2020? >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 01:02:32 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 18:02:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <37984552-B006-4919-ABC2-1FF27975D166@gmail.com> The virtues, in my understanding, have to work together. But let?s leave that aside. While there might be a problem with treating any virtue as unlimited or undefeated by other concerns, the problem with embracing the concomitant vice here is that you are likely to not get people who are right but insincere, but folks who are just plain insincere in a way that leaves you guessing. Now, that said, you accused someone here of voting for Trump ? or of not being in the choir, which amounts to the same thing. He claims otherwise and there?s little reason to doubt him here. So why do you doubt him? Because he?s not foaming at the mouth UN lockstep with you. By the way, in an older post where I asked about clerics being moral experts, you said something along the lines of well they don?t trust the laity. That?s fine, but I?m in the laity as I?m not a member of their church. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jul 29, 2020, at 1:40 PM, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? >> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 4:28 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> > In the old days, defining another's sincerity by one's own criteria would, I think, have been frowned on. > > Sincerity is a vastly overrated virtue, I'd rather somebody be insincerely right than sincerely wrong. And in the old days this list frowned upon anti-libertarianism, but those days are long gone. > > John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 01:35:55 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 18:35:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ancient & Viable In-Reply-To: <778E10F6-1F77-41C7-BA79-FC4B46503562@gmail.com> References: <778E10F6-1F77-41C7-BA79-FC4B46503562@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6E5EB7B8-936B-412F-986A-D90BBD87D467@gmail.com> I?m a bit skeptical of that long a time scale. But if it?s true, it also sounds like a good idea for a bad horror film. ;) (Then again, that?s actually been done several times before.) By the way, I recall Schopf?s popular level _Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils_ discussing life forms that evolve very slow, particularly, it seemed to him, archaea deep underground that have extremely slow metabolic and reproductive rates. He was talking about organisms that might take decades or centuries or even longer to reproduce. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Jul 28, 2020, at 11:19 PM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?TITLE: Deep sea microbes dormant for 100 million years are hungry and ready to multiply > > https://phys.org/news/2020-07-deep-sea-microbes-dormant-million.html > > Basically, the title says it all. Pretty cool, huh? > > SR Ballard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nuala.t at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 02:23:32 2020 From: nuala.t at gmail.com (Nuala Thomson) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 12:23:32 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: <6B8F4AF5-B225-4D95-B23D-8C52E5A08624@gmail.com> References: <6B8F4AF5-B225-4D95-B23D-8C52E5A08624@gmail.com> Message-ID: Haha my apologies I could have worded it much better. 2 parties are better than 1. And no thanks, I prefer to read and learn from peers and those more intelligent than I, over actually participating. On Thu., Jul. 30, 2020, 08:56 Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat, < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I believe what you meant to point out is that Nebraska has an officially > nonpartisan legislature. (Yeah, it?s unicameral, but that only means it has > one chamber ? not that it has one or no parties.) > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jul 29, 2020, at 3:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > Extremely interesting. Where do you know of a one party system outside of > a communist country that works better than a two party one? We have one > unicameral legislature, Nebraska I think. I don't know how well that works. > > Anyway, glad to hear from Down Under. Let us hear more from you! I am > very glad to hear that you are a Green. Perhaps what we need is a third > party: Green. bill w > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 5:00 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> In Australia I tend to vote Greens, which will never run parliament/make >> Prime Minister due to its lack of members, but because I live in a regional >> town. We have the Great Barrier Reef to the east, the protected Daintree >> Rainforest north, and rainforest everywhere else around us, and the local >> council does not give any fucks about the endangered wildlife that live in >> our areas. So I vote Greens purely so there is some fight in councils and >> parliament against doing anything that is going to drive our endangered >> animals towards extinction. Without them, our politicians would go >> unchecked and everything would die or be destroyed. >> *Greens being our hippies that became politicians. >> Your Democrat/Republican parties would be closest related to our >> Labour/Liberal parties. >> 2 party systems suck. >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Thu Jul 30 02:43:47 2020 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 19:43:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Seeds of War Message-ID: <20200729194347.Horde.bglVo6BpCnkEmpq-JyaP0P_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Robert Kennedy III: > > some say this mystery-seeds-from-China thing is just some fraudsters' > scams exploiting a bug in Amazon. > > Or that it's "Gaslighting" (A word I don?t use often enough-somehow I > managed to grow up without seeing the Ingrid Bergman movie so I missed > that meme.) > > The fraud seems like a stretch to me. Also I know that Asian "murder > hornets" showed up out of the blue in the Pacific Northwest this winter. > So I've been having unsettling thoughts about clandestine bio-warfare > or eco-sabotage. Your instincts serve you well, Robert. It is hard to believe that a regime that tracks its citizens so thoroughly that it can stop a viral epidemic in its tracks would be unaware that its merchants are exporting seeds out of country, benign or harmful. Therefore the most likely scenario is some sort of biological or agricultural eco-warfare especially in light of the honeybee destroying murder hornets, if not COVID-19 in the first place. The Chinese government certainly seems onboard with war judging by their closure of our embassies and lack of conciliatory behavior. It seems pretty obvious that Trump is desperate to get us into a war with somebody, and it doesn't seem to matter who since Iran, China, and Antifa all seem plausible. Except that of all of them, China seems to be the most eager to fight at this time. Since no POTUS has ever lost his job in the middle of a war, not even a civil war, I think that it statistically safe to to say that if we go to war for any reason before November, then Trump will likely win a second term. The problem is that even if by some miracle, we avoid war until after the election, the war is likely to still happen. So any candidate who runs against Trump had better have a plan in place to counter China's warmongering that does not involve submitting to communist tyranny. If Biden's plan is simply to roll over and let China have their way with us, then he has no chance to be elected. Stuart LaForge From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 03:52:20 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 20:52:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Murder hornets was seed packets Message-ID: robot at ultimax.com wrote: snip > Also I know that Asian "murder hornets" showed up out of the blue in the Pacific Northwest this winter. And in France, now spread to all Europe. Jordin Kare some years ago designed a "laser fence" to zap mosquitoes. It could be adapted to Asian Hornets. I have proposed it several times, but have never reached a person who could do anything with it. Here is the text from an email to the UK. I have a project in mind that should control Asian hornets. It's based on some work Jordin Kare did at Intellectual Venture did some years ago. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordin_Kare) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4tPrcePdGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGjP9SE7tsM The idea is to spot and verify the hornets with sound then zap them with enough laser power to overheat them. The obvious place to defend is beehives. Keith From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 04:58:02 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 23:58:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: <6B8F4AF5-B225-4D95-B23D-8C52E5A08624@gmail.com> References: <6B8F4AF5-B225-4D95-B23D-8C52E5A08624@gmail.com> Message-ID: John, if we will have Trump constitutional crisis regardless of the way we vote, does our vote actually matter? SR Ballard > On Jul 29, 2020, at 5:54 PM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > > I believe what you meant to point out is that Nebraska has an officially nonpartisan legislature. (Yeah, it?s unicameral, but that only means it has one chamber ? not that it has one or no parties.) > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > http://author.to/DanUst > >> On Jul 29, 2020, at 3:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >> ? >> Extremely interesting. Where do you know of a one party system outside of a communist country that works better than a two party one? We have one unicameral legislature, Nebraska I think. I don't know how well that works. >> >> Anyway, glad to hear from Down Under. Let us hear more from you! I am very glad to hear that you are a Green. Perhaps what we need is a third party: Green. bill w >> >>> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 5:00 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat wrote: >>> In Australia I tend to vote Greens, which will never run parliament/make Prime Minister due to its lack of members, but because I live in a regional town. We have the Great Barrier Reef to the east, the protected Daintree Rainforest north, and rainforest everywhere else around us, and the local council does not give any fucks about the endangered wildlife that live in our areas. So I vote Greens purely so there is some fight in councils and parliament against doing anything that is going to drive our endangered animals towards extinction. Without them, our politicians would go unchecked and everything would die or be destroyed. >>> *Greens being our hippies that became politicians. >>> Your Democrat/Republican parties would be closest related to our Labour/Liberal parties. >>> 2 party systems suck. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 08:39:25 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 01:39:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: <6B8F4AF5-B225-4D95-B23D-8C52E5A08624@gmail.com> Message-ID: It matters to the degree - to the amount of the government that may be willing to stand up to Trump and make it a short crisis. On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 10:00 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > John, if we will have Trump constitutional crisis regardless of the way we > vote, does our vote actually matter? > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 29, 2020, at 5:54 PM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I believe what you meant to point out is that Nebraska has an officially > nonpartisan legislature. (Yeah, it?s unicameral, but that only means it has > one chamber ? not that it has one or no parties.) > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Jul 29, 2020, at 3:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > Extremely interesting. Where do you know of a one party system outside of > a communist country that works better than a two party one? We have one > unicameral legislature, Nebraska I think. I don't know how well that works. > > Anyway, glad to hear from Down Under. Let us hear more from you! I am > very glad to hear that you are a Green. Perhaps what we need is a third > party: Green. bill w > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 5:00 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> In Australia I tend to vote Greens, which will never run parliament/make >> Prime Minister due to its lack of members, but because I live in a regional >> town. We have the Great Barrier Reef to the east, the protected Daintree >> Rainforest north, and rainforest everywhere else around us, and the local >> council does not give any fucks about the endangered wildlife that live in >> our areas. So I vote Greens purely so there is some fight in councils and >> parliament against doing anything that is going to drive our endangered >> animals towards extinction. Without them, our politicians would go >> unchecked and everything would die or be destroyed. >> *Greens being our hippies that became politicians. >> Your Democrat/Republican parties would be closest related to our >> Labour/Liberal parties. >> 2 party systems suck. >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 11:36:22 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 07:36:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 6:07 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > John, I did not even vote in 2016, > *If you say so. But I'm curious, did you think saying that would cast you in a better light?* > Where do you get your ideas, anyway? *Well... one place I get my ideas is the post you sent to this list yesterday at 3PM.* > > and am not going to vote this time either. > *OK, but then it was not true when you said*: "I have been as against Trump (never mind the other Repubs, whom I disdain as well) as it is possible to be ever since I had the slightest knowledge of him. Probably as near a psychopath as any president we have ever had (and never mind the other psychiatric designations I could apply.)" > No point in it *No point in taking the keys of a Trident 2 Nuclear Submarine away from a psychopath??!!* > Waste of time.. > Wow, your time must be *IMPORTANT* if you can't spare 4 1/2 minutes to mail in an absentee ballot! What *Earth Shattering* activities are you engaged in that require 100% of your time? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 12:32:31 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 08:32:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 8:09 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *I wish I could tag Rafal here lol. I vehemently disagree with almost > everything he says but he provides a great foil to JKC. Activating the > Rafal signal now* > Yes, I've found that in general Fascist tend not to like me very much, but they sure like Trump. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 12:59:46 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 07:59:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You just don't get it, do you? You have your extremely limited way of thinking, just like the Trump crowd does, and just like the Trump crowd you cannot change the subject and won't change your mind - you are a fanatic. You ignore facts that you don't agree with. You would make the perfect Trump supporter, which you may be. See below. I think you must have a love-hate relationship with Trump. Just as soon as the love starts becoming conscious, you panic and have to write something bad about him. Did you ever read any Freud, John? I don't vote because I am in Mississippi - Trump all the way. I am not going to respond to you anymore. Talk about a waste of time. You are completely obsessed and can't stop. I think you should be permanently banned from the list. You supply almost nothing except rants. I am through trying to be your friend and help you. You are hopeless. bill w On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 6:39 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 6:07 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > John, I did not even vote in 2016, >> > > *If you say so. But I'm curious, did you think saying that would cast you > in a better light?* > > > Where do you get your ideas, anyway? > > > *Well... one place I get my ideas is the post you sent to this list > yesterday at 3PM.* > > >> > and am not going to vote this time either. >> > > *OK, but then it was not true when you said*: "I have been as against > Trump (never mind the other Repubs, whom I disdain as well) as it is > possible to be ever since I had the slightest knowledge of him. Probably > as near a psychopath as any president we have ever had (and never mind the > other psychiatric designations I could apply.)" > > > No point in it > > > *No point in taking the keys of a Trident 2 Nuclear Submarine away from a > psychopath??!!* > > > Waste of time.. >> > > Wow, your time must be *IMPORTANT* if you can't spare 4 1/2 minutes to > mail in an absentee ballot! What *Earth Shattering* activities are you > engaged in that require 100% of your time? > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 13:03:44 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 08:03:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Seeds of War In-Reply-To: <20200729194347.Horde.bglVo6BpCnkEmpq-JyaP0P_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20200729194347.Horde.bglVo6BpCnkEmpq-JyaP0P_@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: The Chinese government certainly seems onboard with war judging by their closure of our embassies and lack of conciliatory behavior. stuart Who started closing embassies first? And have you seen any conciliatory behavior out of Trump? The very idea is foolish. bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 9:45 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Quoting Robert Kennedy III: > > > > > some say this mystery-seeds-from-China thing is just some fraudsters' > > scams exploiting a bug in Amazon. > > > > Or that it's "Gaslighting" (A word I don?t use often enough-somehow I > > managed to grow up without seeing the Ingrid Bergman movie so I missed > > that meme.) > > > > The fraud seems like a stretch to me. Also I know that Asian "murder > > hornets" showed up out of the blue in the Pacific Northwest this winter. > > So I've been having unsettling thoughts about clandestine bio-warfare > > or eco-sabotage. > > Your instincts serve you well, Robert. It is hard to believe that a > regime that tracks its citizens so thoroughly > that it can stop a viral epidemic in its tracks would be unaware that > its merchants are exporting seeds out of country, benign or harmful. > > Therefore the most likely scenario is some sort of biological or > agricultural eco-warfare especially in light of the honeybee > destroying murder hornets, if not COVID-19 in the first place. The > Chinese government certainly seems onboard with war judging by their > closure of our embassies and lack of conciliatory behavior. > > It seems pretty obvious that Trump is desperate to get us into a war > with somebody, and it doesn't seem to matter who since Iran, China, > and Antifa all seem plausible. Except that of all of them, China seems > to be the most eager to fight at this time. Since no POTUS has ever > lost his job in the middle of a war, not even a civil war, I think > that it statistically safe to to say that if we go to war for any > reason before November, then Trump will likely win a second term. > > The problem is that even if by some miracle, we avoid war until after > the election, the war is likely to still happen. So any candidate who > runs against Trump had better have a plan in place to counter China's > warmongering that does not involve submitting to communist tyranny. If > Biden's plan is simply to roll over and let China have their way with > us, then he has no chance to be elected. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 13:04:18 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 09:04:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: When people are really annoying, it's satsifying and funny to troll them, even if you agree with them politically. I think Rafal has a lot of reprehensible stances but he is more polite here than you and generally a nicer person to have a conversation with. Due to your personality, especially when you spew on Trump, the things you say actually have the effect of making people agree with you less. You are akin to a really dumb conservative making conservative people all look really dumb. Please let that sink in. You are actually hurting your cause. Actively doing damage to what you purport to be in support of. I believe that deep down, you know this, but you care more about bothering people than actually making positive change. If you actually cared, you would act a way conducive to getting people to listen to you, and we would probably hear from you about actual initiatives you were taking to help get Trump out of office. Never hear that stuff from you. A rational person would conclude you don't give a shit and are just trolling. Please understand this is how you are viewed here now in terms of the political posts. You have certainly done damage against your viewpoint. On Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 08:34 John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 8:09 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *I wish I could tag Rafal here lol. I vehemently disagree with almost >> everything he says but he provides a great foil to JKC. Activating the >> Rafal signal now* >> > > Yes, I've found that in general Fascist tend not to like me very much, but > they sure like Trump. > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 13:05:13 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 09:05:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 9:02 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > You just don't get it, do you? > Nope. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 13:26:19 2020 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 09:26:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Sharpiegate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 7:54 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > And meanwhile just yesterday Trump was back on national television pushing > a quack cure for COVID-19 (hydroxychloroquine) on millions of Americans > No comment on Trump, but in terms of HCQ, quite a few people are pushing that "quack" cure in many different countries where it hasn't been politicized because Orangeman bad. You can read all about them here: https://twitter.com/cryptonephilim/status/1288402859357171713 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 13:51:33 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 09:51:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Trump suggests delaying the election Message-ID: A lesser man would say "I told you so" but I am above that sort of pettiness so I won't say it: Trump floats delaying election despite lack of authority to do so John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 16:21:55 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 12:21:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Trump suggests delaying the election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It would be stupid to say I told you so because it's obvious he will try to do this and he's been saying it forever. It's like saying "2+2=4, I told you so!" Nobody is surprised. On Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 09:53 John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > A lesser man would say "I told you so" but I am above that sort of > pettiness so I won't say it: > > Trump floats delaying election despite lack of authority to do so > > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 16:50:04 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 09:50:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Latest Mars rover Message-ID: ... is on its way! Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 17:28:43 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 12:28:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Latest Mars rover In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exciting! Any good news is worth it at the moment. SR Ballard > On Jul 30, 2020, at 11:50 AM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > > ... is on its way! > > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 17:31:28 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 12:31:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: <6B8F4AF5-B225-4D95-B23D-8C52E5A08624@gmail.com> Message-ID: Oh, I personally am going to vote. I?m trying to see if I can squeeze my departure until after the start of early voting. Or else leave early enough to register at my new address. Right now I am poised to leave in the mid-zone, unfortunately. My fear is leaving too soon for early voting but too late for re-registration. Texas might swing so it would be cool to be part of that. SR Ballard > On Jul 30, 2020, at 3:39 AM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > It matters to the degree - to the amount of the government that may be willing to stand up to Trump and make it a short crisis. > >> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 10:00 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> John, if we will have Trump constitutional crisis regardless of the way we vote, does our vote actually matter? >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 29, 2020, at 5:54 PM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> I believe what you meant to point out is that Nebraska has an officially nonpartisan legislature. (Yeah, it?s unicameral, but that only means it has one chamber ? not that it has one or no parties.) >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Dan >>> Sample my Kindle books at: >>> http://author.to/DanUst >>> >>>> On Jul 29, 2020, at 3:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> ? >>>> Extremely interesting. Where do you know of a one party system outside of a communist country that works better than a two party one? We have one unicameral legislature, Nebraska I think. I don't know how well that works. >>>> >>>> Anyway, glad to hear from Down Under. Let us hear more from you! I am very glad to hear that you are a Green. Perhaps what we need is a third party: Green. bill w >>>> >>>>> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 5:00 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>> In Australia I tend to vote Greens, which will never run parliament/make Prime Minister due to its lack of members, but because I live in a regional town. We have the Great Barrier Reef to the east, the protected Daintree Rainforest north, and rainforest everywhere else around us, and the local council does not give any fucks about the endangered wildlife that live in our areas. So I vote Greens purely so there is some fight in councils and parliament against doing anything that is going to drive our endangered animals towards extinction. Without them, our politicians would go unchecked and everything would die or be destroyed. >>>>> *Greens being our hippies that became politicians. >>>>> Your Democrat/Republican parties would be closest related to our Labour/Liberal parties. >>>>> 2 party systems suck. >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 19:11:30 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 12:11:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Has anyone here (aside from me) read _The Myth of the Rational Voter_? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 04:02:56 2020 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2020 23:02:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Anti-aging In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Bill, Thanks for these links. I just completed a write up of current anti-aging results and research. I think others on the extropian list might be appreciate it too: https://alwaysasking.com/can-aging-be-cured/ Jason On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 4:52 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The Fight Aging website > > This site has all the latest news about anti-aging research, with many > links to related organisations. > > including - > > SENS Research Foundation works to develop, promote, and ensure > widespread access to therapies that cure and prevent the diseases and > disabilities of aging by comprehensively repairing the damage that > builds up in our bodies over time. We are redefining the way the world > researches and treats age-related ill health, while inspiring the next > generation of biomedical scientists. > ------------ > > The dietary supplements industry is already huge - now over 100 billion > USD p.a. > > People already buy many supplements of dubious value in order to live > longer and healthier lives. In theory companies are not allowed to > make medical claims that they can treat diseases, but the FDA has to > play whack-a-mole, continually fining and closing down offending > companies. There are also quality control problems and dangerous > ingredients. > > Currently I doubt that there are any 'secret' supplements that > significantly extend life better than exercise and a healthy diet that > avoids obesity. > (If you can find a supplement by an internet search then it's not > 'secret'). > > But if something is found that works, then you can be sure that Big > Pharma will be selling it to everyone and raking in huge profits. > That is exactly the type of treatment they dream of. Something that > everyone has to buy and take every day - for ever! > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 04:17:12 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:17:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I live in PA, so my vote definitely counts a lot. I actually agree with John not only that voting in safe states will likely matter in what happens, but also that voting for Biden specifically will be more important than just voting against Trump, because Biden will be helped by tallies the same way Trump is hurt by them. That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for Biden instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning on. Idk On Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 15:12 Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Has anyone here (aside from me) read _The Myth of the Rational Voter_? > > 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 10:18:07 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 06:18:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 12:19 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> I live in PA, so my vote definitely counts a lot. I actually agree with > John not only that voting in safe states will likely matter in what > happens, but also that voting for Biden specifically will be more important > than just voting against Trump, because Biden will be helped by tallies the > same way Trump is hurt by them.* > Good. *> That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for Biden > instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning on. Idk* > I've tried, I've really tried, but I just don't understand that attitude. What on Earth is the downside to voting against a fascist who has put the constitution in mortal danger?! John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 10:27:41 2020 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 11:27:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Anti-aging In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 at 05:06, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote: > > Hi Bill, > > Thanks for these links. > > I just completed a write up of current anti-aging results and research. > > I think others on the extropian list might be appreciate it too: https://alwaysasking.com/can-aging-be-cured/ > > Jason > > On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 4:52 AM BillK via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> The Fight Aging website >> >> This site has all the latest news about anti-aging research, with many >> links to related organisations. >> >> including - >> >> SENS Research Foundation works to develop, promote, and ensure >> widespread access to therapies that cure and prevent the diseases and >> disabilities of aging by comprehensively repairing the damage that >> builds up in our bodies over time. We are redefining the way the world >> researches and treats age-related ill health, while inspiring the next >> generation of biomedical scientists. >> ------------ >> >> The dietary supplements industry is already huge - now over 100 billion USD p.a. >> >> People already buy many supplements of dubious value in order to live >> longer and healthier lives. In theory companies are not allowed to >> make medical claims that they can treat diseases, but the FDA has to >> play whack-a-mole, continually fining and closing down offending >> companies. There are also quality control problems and dangerous >> ingredients. >> >> Currently I doubt that there are any 'secret' supplements that >> significantly extend life better than exercise and a healthy diet that >> avoids obesity. >> (If you can find a supplement by an internet search then it's not 'secret'). >> >> But if something is found that works, then you can be sure that Big >> Pharma will be selling it to everyone and raking in huge profits. >> That is exactly the type of treatment they dream of. Something that >> everyone has to buy and take every day - for ever! >> >> BillK >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat Hi Jason That's a very thorough article about anti-aging! I liked it! :) My Firefox 79 struggled a bit to load it though. I suspect the many youtube links slowed it up. Vivaldi browser (based on Chromium) seemed a bit quicker. Best wishes, BillK From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 14:42:57 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:42:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Apathy, disgust with two party system, hopelessness. It may be harder to understand for older people. We younger people have very little hope for the future. While you guys were excited for the future as kids, young adults, and beyond, we have no hope. Geopolitical instability is increasing, there are pandemics, climate change, and increasingly polarized and violent populations in many countries. We are so salty at this that at times we literally no longer care what happens, and would rather 'watch the world burn' out of spite and the fact that said burning seems inevitable at this point. The world is more fucked up than it was last time there was severe global shake-up (WWII) but now there are far more nukes and nuclear countries, worse weather, far worse wealth inequality, more densely clustered living areas leading to unrest and disease. So the basic idea is 'it's already fucked, may as well make my disappointment clear.' For older people, Trump getting elected or not may determine whether the entire rest of your life is calm or is full of strife. For us, strife is pretty much guaranteed at some point. In fact, will hastening it in some way get us out the other side more quickly? A kind of 'just get it over with already' perspective. So--if the thing to avoid is horrible strife at some point in one's life, we don't see the election of Trump as really having a bearing on that. It will come sooner or later. Even if Biden is elected, it seems easy to believe that the world will still get worse even during his tenure, surveillance and wealth gap will increase, more pandemics, more natural disasters, more war. John--that's why. Because when you have 80 more years to live, it can seem like it doesn't matter either way. Maybe Trump losing will initiate a renaissance of compassion, technological improvement for the better of humankind, knowledge-gathering, and wealth redistribution. But more likely than not it will just be a brief positive bump, if even that. Or just a not-as-bad negative. On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 6:19 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 12:19 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *> I live in PA, so my vote definitely counts a lot. I actually agree with >> John not only that voting in safe states will likely matter in what >> happens, but also that voting for Biden specifically will be more important >> than just voting against Trump, because Biden will be helped by tallies the >> same way Trump is hurt by them.* >> > > Good. > > *> That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for Biden >> instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning on. Idk* >> > > I've tried, I've really tried, but I just don't understand that attitude. > What on Earth is the downside to voting against a fascist who has put the > constitution in mortal danger?! > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 14:53:52 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 09:53:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We younger people have very little hope for the future. will Have you heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Of course you have. My parents lived through two WWs and a deep Depression. I never heard them say that any of that ruined their lives. You just did what you had to do and moved on. We were lower middle class. Didn't have a lot but bought new cars and always had food on the table. And so on. I hope your attitude doesn't spread. Last thing we need is a national emotional depression. Of course most of us will grieve if the election doesn't go our way, but honestly, we have lived through the last four years and could live through four more years - not happy, but surviving and trying to make our personal lives mean something. That's all we really can control: our own lives. Don't give up on them. bill w On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 9:45 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Apathy, disgust with two party system, hopelessness. > > It may be harder to understand for older people. > > We younger people have very little hope for the future. While you guys > were excited for the future as kids, young adults, and beyond, we have no > hope. Geopolitical instability is increasing, there are pandemics, climate > change, and increasingly polarized and violent populations in many > countries. We are so salty at this that at times we literally no longer > care what happens, and would rather 'watch the world burn' out of spite and > the fact that said burning seems inevitable at this point. The world is > more fucked up than it was last time there was severe global shake-up > (WWII) but now there are far more nukes and nuclear countries, worse > weather, far worse wealth inequality, more densely clustered living areas > leading to unrest and disease. > > So the basic idea is 'it's already fucked, may as well make my > disappointment clear.' > > For older people, Trump getting elected or not may determine whether the > entire rest of your life is calm or is full of strife. For us, strife is > pretty much guaranteed at some point. In fact, will hastening it in some > way get us out the other side more quickly? A kind of 'just get it over > with already' perspective. > > So--if the thing to avoid is horrible strife at some point in one's life, > we don't see the election of Trump as really having a bearing on that. It > will come sooner or later. Even if Biden is elected, it seems easy to > believe that the world will still get worse even during his tenure, > surveillance and wealth gap will increase, more pandemics, more natural > disasters, more war. > > John--that's why. Because when you have 80 more years to live, it can > seem like it doesn't matter either way. > > Maybe Trump losing will initiate a renaissance of compassion, > technological improvement for the better of humankind, knowledge-gathering, > and wealth redistribution. But more likely than not it will just be a > brief positive bump, if even that. Or just a not-as-bad negative. > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 6:19 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 12:19 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> *> I live in PA, so my vote definitely counts a lot. I actually agree >>> with John not only that voting in safe states will likely matter in what >>> happens, but also that voting for Biden specifically will be more important >>> than just voting against Trump, because Biden will be helped by tallies the >>> same way Trump is hurt by them.* >>> >> >> Good. >> >> *> That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for Biden >>> instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning on. Idk* >>> >> >> I've tried, I've really tried, but I just don't understand that attitude. >> What on Earth is the downside to voting against a fascist who has put the >> constitution in mortal danger?! >> >> John K Clark >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Fri Jul 31 14:58:13 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 07:58:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2020-7-31 07:42, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: > We younger people have very little hope for the future.? While you guys > were excited for the future as kids, young adults, and beyond, we have > no hope. Does anyone else here remember that in 1982 nuclear war seemed likely? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Fri Jul 31 15:08:43 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 08:08:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3ba71841-bec4-b538-0c14-b9b3d5075ff8@pobox.com> > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 12:19 AM Will Steinberg wrote: > /> That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for > Biden instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning > on.? Idk/ On 2020-7-31 03:18, John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: > I've tried, I've really tried, but I just don't understand that > attitude. What on Earth is the downside to voting against a fascist who > has put the constitution in mortal danger?! Legitimizing the system. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 15:19:00 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 11:19:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 10:45 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *We younger people have very little hope for the future.* I'd have very little hope for the future too if I thought most young people couldn't be bothered to spend 4 1/2 minutes filling out an absentee ballot to stop a fascist imbecile from continuing to control tens of thousands of Thermonuclear H-bombs. You probably spent a lot more time than 4 1/2 minutes writing the email that I'm responding to right now! I mean, what will you be doing during those 4 1/2 minutes that is more important than that? I asked in my last post what the downside to voting was, and I still haven't heard it. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 15:32:35 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 11:32:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 11:07 AM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *Does anyone else here remember that in 1982 nuclear war seemed likely?* I do, but nuclear war seemed far FAR more likely in 1962. I was 13 at the time and remember wondering if I would still be alive in 24 hours. My father was worried too, he very rarely drank alcohol but the first thing he said after we finished watching Kennedy's Cuba speech on TV was "*I'm going to make myself a drink*". John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 15:38:32 2020 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 11:38:32 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:54 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > We younger people have very little hope for the future. will > > Have you heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Of course you have. My > parents lived through two WWs and a deep Depression. I never heard them > say that any of that ruined their lives. > No offense to your parents, but the world is far more poised today to be destroyed than it was back then. I hope your attitude doesn't spread. Last thing we need is a national > emotional depression. > Er...it's too late. Hate to break it to you, but there is a national emotional depression among young people. Putting aside everything but nuclear war, things are pretty dismal. On the topic of nuclear war, do you think we won't have a nuclear war in the next 80 years? I think it is likely -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jul 31 15:40:56 2020 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 16:40:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/07/2020 15:54, Will Steinberg wrote: > We younger people have very little hope for the future.? While you > guys were excited for the future as kids, young adults, and beyond, we > have no hope. Odd, then, that you're here, participating in this Extropians list. You're not thinking of trying to pull us 'Boundless Optimism' types down into despair, are you? Not gonna work! :-D -- Ben Zaiboc From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 15:49:19 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:49:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: They say you can't predict the future. I say you can't predict anything else. NO to great big nuclear war. Limited one, maybe NO to world's breaking down. NO to permanent younger people doubts about the future. The current economic damage won't last any more than the Great Depression did. We'll get through it. We have the world's best innovators and scientists and I see that continuing. I'd like to know where you are getting your data about the attitudes of younger people. Polls? Personal contacts? We will not only survive, we will prevail (quote from ???? Faulkner? Nobel speech?) bill w On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 10:40 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:54 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> We younger people have very little hope for the future. will >> >> Have you heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Of course you have. My >> parents lived through two WWs and a deep Depression. I never heard them >> say that any of that ruined their lives. >> > > No offense to your parents, but the world is far more poised today to be > destroyed than it was back then. > > I hope your attitude doesn't spread. Last thing we need is a national >> emotional depression. >> > > Er...it's too late. Hate to break it to you, but there is a national > emotional depression among young people. > > Putting aside everything but nuclear war, things are pretty dismal. > > On the topic of nuclear war, do you think we won't have a nuclear war in > the next 80 years? I think it is likely > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 15:50:08 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 11:50:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 11:41 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: *> No offense to your parents, but the world is far more poised today to be > destroyed than it was back then.* > Will, you DESPERATELY need to read Steven Pinker's book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" to get you out of this funk, you should get it today! The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 15:51:41 2020 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 08:51:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 8:40 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Putting aside everything but nuclear war, things are pretty dismal. > > On the topic of nuclear war, do you think we won't have a nuclear war in > the next 80 years? I think it is likely > And people wonder why some are pressing so hard to set up some sort of off-Earth colony that can become self-sufficient. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 16:07:33 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:07:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Trump suggests delaying the election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Still scary, either way. Trump seems to be preloading the argument stage. He knows there is no way the elections will be delayed. But once they are not delayed, and he loses, lots of people will believe him that the "mail only" election was different than anything in the past, so believable by many that it could be a fraud to get him out of office. Anything that says otherwise is 'fake news', Providing him all the justification he needs to call out the military against anyone committing treason against him. On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 10:23 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It would be stupid to say I told you so because it's obvious he will try > to do this and he's been saying it forever. It's like saying "2+2=4, I > told you so!" > > Nobody is surprised. > > On Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 09:53 John Clark via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> A lesser man would say "I told you so" but I am above that sort of >> pettiness so I won't say it: >> >> Trump floats delaying election despite lack of authority to do so >> >> >> John K Clark >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 19:32:50 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:32:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <05D2E532-5A2B-460D-BE72-A7EAB3D1D5F1@gmail.com> On Jul 31, 2020, at 9:07 AM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote:? > >>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 8:40 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >>> Putting aside everything but nuclear war, things are pretty dismal. >>> >>> On the topic of nuclear war, do you think we won't have a nuclear war in the next 80 years? I think it is likely >> >> >> And people wonder why some are pressing so hard to set up some sort of off-Earth colony that can become self-sufficient. Indeed. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 19:35:22 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:35:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Trump suggests delaying the election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jul 31, 2020, at 9:13 AM, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat wrote:? > Still scary, either way. > Trump seems to be preloading the argument stage. > He knows there is no way the elections will be delayed. > But once they are not delayed, and he loses, lots of people will believe him that the "mail only" election was different than anything in the past, so believable by many that it could be a fraud to get him out of office. Anything that says otherwise is 'fake news', > Providing him all the justification he needs to call out the military against anyone committing treason against him. I also think it works for him as preloading a narrative of why he lost even if he does nothing else but whine about it afterward. He can always say, until the day he dies, ?I would?ve won if the election were only delayed.? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 20:27:39 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 15:27:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You hope this attitude doesn?t spread? That must be a very large rock friend. 100% of under 30s I have met both online and IRL agree with the sentiment that it?s all ultimately pointless and horrible. Some do a better job ignoring it day-to-day compared to others. Even before the pandemic, under 30s have experienced profound isolation, extended adolescence, a plethora of parasocial relationships and a dearth of real ones, overwhelming screentime, lack of personal relationships. Decline of religiousity means decreased social networks and lack of meaning in life, lack of opportunities to both give and receive altruism. Constant movement both within cities and across nations prevents a sense of community. Decline of cultural monoliths means lack of shared popular culture. Job opportunities are poor, housing is expensive, and university debt is suffocating. Regardless of the material facts of the situation, poor opportunities and lack of community coupled with a lack of leadership create a trifecta of human emotional misery. The WWs in the US did not suffer from those. The Depression was a somewhat mixed bag in that regard. People can be happy regardless of their material poverty as long as they have a strong sense of community and goals. Even if that goal is just ?don?t let my family starve?. SR Ballard > On Jul 31, 2020, at 9:53 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > We younger people have very little hope for the future. will > > Have you heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Of course you have. My parents lived through two WWs and a deep Depression. I never heard them say that any of that ruined their lives. You just did what you had to do and moved on. We were lower middle class. Didn't have a lot but bought new cars and always had food on the table. And so on. > > I hope your attitude doesn't spread. Last thing we need is a national emotional depression. Of course most of us will grieve if the election doesn't go our way, but honestly, we have lived through the last four years and could live through four more years - not happy, but surviving and trying to make our personal lives mean something. That's all we really can control: our own lives. Don't give up on them. > > bill w > >> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 9:45 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >> Apathy, disgust with two party system, hopelessness. >> >> It may be harder to understand for older people. >> >> We younger people have very little hope for the future. While you guys were excited for the future as kids, young adults, and beyond, we have no hope. Geopolitical instability is increasing, there are pandemics, climate change, and increasingly polarized and violent populations in many countries. We are so salty at this that at times we literally no longer care what happens, and would rather 'watch the world burn' out of spite and the fact that said burning seems inevitable at this point. The world is more fucked up than it was last time there was severe global shake-up (WWII) but now there are far more nukes and nuclear countries, worse weather, far worse wealth inequality, more densely clustered living areas leading to unrest and disease. >> >> So the basic idea is 'it's already fucked, may as well make my disappointment clear.' >> >> For older people, Trump getting elected or not may determine whether the entire rest of your life is calm or is full of strife. For us, strife is pretty much guaranteed at some point. In fact, will hastening it in some way get us out the other side more quickly? A kind of 'just get it over with already' perspective. >> >> So--if the thing to avoid is horrible strife at some point in one's life, we don't see the election of Trump as really having a bearing on that. It will come sooner or later. Even if Biden is elected, it seems easy to believe that the world will still get worse even during his tenure, surveillance and wealth gap will increase, more pandemics, more natural disasters, more war. >> >> John--that's why. Because when you have 80 more years to live, it can seem like it doesn't matter either way. >> >> Maybe Trump losing will initiate a renaissance of compassion, technological improvement for the better of humankind, knowledge-gathering, and wealth redistribution. But more likely than not it will just be a brief positive bump, if even that. Or just a not-as-bad negative. >> >>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 6:19 AM John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 12:19 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> >>>> > I live in PA, so my vote definitely counts a lot. I actually agree with John not only that voting in safe states will likely matter in what happens, but also that voting for Biden specifically will be more important than just voting against Trump, because Biden will be helped by tallies the same way Trump is hurt by them. >>> >>> Good. >>> >>>> > That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for Biden instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning on. Idk >>> >>> I've tried, I've really tried, but I just don't understand that attitude. What on Earth is the downside to voting against a fascist who has put the constitution in mortal danger?! >>> >>> John K Clark >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Fri Jul 31 20:55:21 2020 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 13:55:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Trump suggests delaying the election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2020-7-31 12:35, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: > I also think it works for him as preloading a narrative of why he lost > even if he does nothing else but whine about it afterward. He can always > say, until the day he dies, ?I would?ve won if the election were only > delayed.? Remember when folks were saying he did not want to be elected? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 20:58:04 2020 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 15:58:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > You hope this attitude doesn?t spread? That must be a very large rock > friend. > I a missing the metaphor here. Living under a rock, maybe? > > 100% of under 30s I have met both online and IRL agree with the sentiment > that it?s all ultimately pointless and horrible. Some do a better job > ignoring it day-to-day compared to others. > Do any of these people have a good job? Happily married? College education? These people do exist, you know. I have to doubt that if they have these things they are as depressed as the ones who may be stuck to their computers (which a lot of people need to get away from, I think. Maybe you just don't know many of these people.) > > Even before the pandemic, under 30s have experienced profound isolation, > extended adolescence, a plethora of parasocial relationships and a dearth > of real ones, overwhelming screentime, lack of personal relationships. > How can you blame these things on society? Especially extended adolescence - that is all up the person. It reads like a bunch of lazy sluggards to me, who won't help themselves and are still living at home. Good friends are something you have to seek and friendship you have to work at. > > Decline of religiousity means decreased social networks and lack of > meaning in life, lack of opportunities to both give and receive altruism. > It sounds as if those people need a crutch. Society is not forcing anyone to be less religious. If they can't find a meaning in life, maybe they could work at being a better person. That's enough meaning for most of us. I also have to doubt that people cannot find ways to help the needy of all flavors. There are plenty of charitable organizations where you can volunteer. Some specious logic here. > > Constant movement both within cities and across nations prevents a sense > of community. > Again, you can't blame this on society. > > Decline of cultural monoliths means lack of shared popular culture. Job > opportunities are poor, housing is expensive, and university debt is > suffocating. > I am not sure what a cultural monolith is. It seems to me that there are so many cultures out there, esp. in pop music, that if you can't find a niche you are just too picky. I fully agree about jobs, which have been underpaid for many years (while the rich get richer). And college debt is a national disgrace. > > Regardless of the material facts of the situation, poor opportunities and > lack of community coupled with a lack of leadership create a trifecta of > human emotional misery. > Just who is supposed to provide leadership for your personal life? Politicians? Rock stars? TV gurus? What happened to family and friends? bill w > The WWs in the US did not suffer from those. The Depression was a somewhat > mixed bag in that regard. > > People can be happy regardless of their material poverty as long as they > have a strong sense of community and goals. Even if that goal is just > ?don?t let my family starve?. > > SR Ballard > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 9:53 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > We younger people have very little hope for the future. will > > Have you heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Of course you have. My > parents lived through two WWs and a deep Depression. I never heard them > say that any of that ruined their lives. You just did what you had to do > and moved on. We were lower middle class. Didn't have a lot but bought > new cars and always had food on the table. And so on. > > I hope your attitude doesn't spread. Last thing we need is a national > emotional depression. Of course most of us will grieve if the election > doesn't go our way, but honestly, we have lived through the last four years > and could live through four more years - not happy, but surviving and > trying to make our personal lives mean something. That's all we really can > control: our own lives. Don't give up on them. > > bill w > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 9:45 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Apathy, disgust with two party system, hopelessness. >> >> It may be harder to understand for older people. >> >> We younger people have very little hope for the future. While you guys >> were excited for the future as kids, young adults, and beyond, we have no >> hope. Geopolitical instability is increasing, there are pandemics, climate >> change, and increasingly polarized and violent populations in many >> countries. We are so salty at this that at times we literally no longer >> care what happens, and would rather 'watch the world burn' out of spite and >> the fact that said burning seems inevitable at this point. The world is >> more fucked up than it was last time there was severe global shake-up >> (WWII) but now there are far more nukes and nuclear countries, worse >> weather, far worse wealth inequality, more densely clustered living areas >> leading to unrest and disease. >> >> So the basic idea is 'it's already fucked, may as well make my >> disappointment clear.' >> >> For older people, Trump getting elected or not may determine whether the >> entire rest of your life is calm or is full of strife. For us, strife is >> pretty much guaranteed at some point. In fact, will hastening it in some >> way get us out the other side more quickly? A kind of 'just get it over >> with already' perspective. >> >> So--if the thing to avoid is horrible strife at some point in one's life, >> we don't see the election of Trump as really having a bearing on that. It >> will come sooner or later. Even if Biden is elected, it seems easy to >> believe that the world will still get worse even during his tenure, >> surveillance and wealth gap will increase, more pandemics, more natural >> disasters, more war. >> >> John--that's why. Because when you have 80 more years to live, it can >> seem like it doesn't matter either way. >> >> Maybe Trump losing will initiate a renaissance of compassion, >> technological improvement for the better of humankind, knowledge-gathering, >> and wealth redistribution. But more likely than not it will just be a >> brief positive bump, if even that. Or just a not-as-bad negative. >> >> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 6:19 AM John Clark via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 12:19 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> *> I live in PA, so my vote definitely counts a lot. I actually agree >>>> with John not only that voting in safe states will likely matter in what >>>> happens, but also that voting for Biden specifically will be more important >>>> than just voting against Trump, because Biden will be helped by tallies the >>>> same way Trump is hurt by them.* >>>> >>> >>> Good. >>> >>> *> That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for Biden >>>> instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning on. Idk* >>>> >>> >>> I've tried, I've really tried, but I just don't understand that attitude. >>> What on Earth is the downside to voting against a fascist who has put the >>> constitution in mortal danger?! >>> >>> John K Clark >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 21:07:44 2020 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 17:07:44 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Trump suggests delaying the election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:57 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: * >Remember when folks were saying he did not want to be elected?* > I remember that on the day Trump announced that he was running for president folks were saying he had zero chance of becoming the Republican nominee, much less actually becoming president, and those folks actually welcomed his candidacy because they thought he was a clown and would provide comic relief to an otherwise dull political season. I'm ashamed to admit it now but I was one of those folks. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 21:20:52 2020 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 15:20:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Trump suggests delaying the election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yea, I remember I was so happy that he one the replican nomination. I was SURE he would never win against Hillary, so I thought her fate was sealed as the first female president. I have a friend that doesn't have a good grasp on reality, saying Trump would Win. I had to eat my words on that one, thinking he had a better grasp of reality than I do. On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 3:14 PM John Clark via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:57 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > * >Remember when folks were saying he did not want to be elected?* >> > > I remember that on the day Trump announced that he was running for > president folks were saying he had zero chance of becoming the Republican > nominee, much less actually becoming president, and those folks actually > welcomed his candidacy because they thought he was a clown and would > provide comic relief to an otherwise dull political season. I'm ashamed > to admit it now but I was one of those folks. > > John K Clark > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 21:41:30 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 16:41:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <95B74E21-C65E-47FE-9A84-DDDE99DEA097@gmail.com> Sent from my iPhone > On Jul 31, 2020, at 3:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > >> You hope this attitude doesn?t spread? That must be a very large rock friend. >> I a missing the metaphor here. Living under a rock, maybe? >> >> 100% of under 30s I have met both online and IRL agree with the sentiment that it?s all ultimately pointless and horrible. Some do a better job ignoring it day-to-day compared to others. > Do any of these people have a good job? Happily married? College education? These people do exist, you know. I have to doubt that if they have these things they are as depressed as the ones who may be stuck to their computers (which a lot of people need to get away from, I think. Maybe you just don't know many of these people.) >> Only 1-2 people I know have nice jobs but more than half of them have college educations. Most of the people who I know that are married are Mormon, and they generally have a positive outlook regardless of marital status. >> Even before the pandemic, under 30s have experienced profound isolation, extended adolescence, a plethora of parasocial relationships and a dearth of real ones, overwhelming screentime, lack of personal relationships. > How can you blame these things on society? Especially extended adolescence - that is all up the person. It reads like a bunch of lazy sluggards to me, who won't help themselves and are still living at home. Good friends are something you have to seek and friendship you have to work at. Extended adolescence is LITERALLY caused by society, specifically helicopter parenting. How do you expect children to make real friends if their main relationships are parasocial and the rest are mediated by social media, while playing with other kids required predetermined ?play dates?? >> >> Decline of religiousity means decreased social networks and lack of meaning in life, lack of opportunities to both give and receive altruism. > It sounds as if those people need a crutch. Society is not forcing anyone to be less religious. If they can't find a meaning in life, maybe they could work at being a better person. That's enough meaning for most of us. I also have to doubt that people cannot find ways to help the needy of all flavors. There are plenty of charitable organizations where you can volunteer. Some specious logic here. I think you have an overly optimistic view of people. Society isn?t forcing people to become religious, but the majority of society is less religious. I think you?re absolutely missing the point of what religion offers people. If you can?t see the difference between an entire community network of mutual aid and a ?charitable orzanization? then I?m not really sure what to tell you. >> >> Constant movement both within cities and across nations prevents a sense of community. >> Again, you can't blame this on society. Again, this is caused by increased technology, and lack of local work opportunities. People have to move to find better jobs. >> >> Decline of cultural monoliths means lack of shared popular culture. Job opportunities are poor, housing is expensive, and university debt is suffocating. > I am not sure what a cultural monolith is. It seems to me that there are so many cultures out there, esp. in pop music, that if you can't find a niche you are just too picky. I fully agree about jobs, which have been underpaid for many years (while the rich get richer). And college debt is a national disgrace. Finding a niche is exactly the OPPOSITE of a cultural monolith. A monolith is something every watches, reads, hears, or does. People need a common ground and a monolith (Dallas, the Beatles, Elvis) provides a that. >> >> Regardless of the material facts of the situation, poor opportunities and lack of community coupled with a lack of leadership create a trifecta of human emotional misery. > Just who is supposed to provide leadership for your personal life? Politicians? Rock stars? TV gurus? What happened to family and friends? Anyone CAN provide it. Our current politicians aren?t really doing a great job. With the fragmentation of popular culture, no one listens to the same pop star or guru. People don?t have friends and disagree with their families, or aren?t close to them. You keep acting like I?m blaming ?society? as a whole. ?Society? doesn?t actually exist. It is the sum of human actions in a given geographical area. If the trends didn?t exist, there would be nothing to talk about. The trends I?m talking about are real and if you want me to dig up actual links in order to see what is very clear to basically all young people, I suppose I can. I don?t think you appreciate the psychological impact of technology and changing social values on young people while they were growing up. I want you to really imagine it. How do you talk to your friends? How often do you see your family? How much attention do you get from parents? Are you allowed to go outside? What do you do, other than school? How does school work? What is your plan for not getting shot? And so on. You tell me what you think an average pre-pandemic day looks like for a 10 year-old, 15 year-old, 20-year old. Compare that to what you experienced growing up. You can?t deny human psychology until you have some way to alter it. And we don?t. SR Ballard > bill w >> The WWs in the US did not suffer from those. The Depression was a somewhat mixed bag in that regard. >> >> People can be happy regardless of their material poverty as long as they have a strong sense of community and goals. Even if that goal is just ?don?t let my family starve?. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 31, 2020, at 9:53 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> We younger people have very little hope for the future. will >>> >>> Have you heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Of course you have. My parents lived through two WWs and a deep Depression. I never heard them say that any of that ruined their lives. You just did what you had to do and moved on. We were lower middle class. Didn't have a lot but bought new cars and always had food on the table. And so on. >>> >>> I hope your attitude doesn't spread. Last thing we need is a national emotional depression. Of course most of us will grieve if the election doesn't go our way, but honestly, we have lived through the last four years and could live through four more years - not happy, but surviving and trying to make our personal lives mean something. That's all we really can control: our own lives. Don't give up on them. >>> >>> bill w >>> >>>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 9:45 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> Apathy, disgust with two party system, hopelessness. >>>> >>>> It may be harder to understand for older people. >>>> >>>> We younger people have very little hope for the future. While you guys were excited for the future as kids, young adults, and beyond, we have no hope. Geopolitical instability is increasing, there are pandemics, climate change, and increasingly polarized and violent populations in many countries. We are so salty at this that at times we literally no longer care what happens, and would rather 'watch the world burn' out of spite and the fact that said burning seems inevitable at this point. The world is more fucked up than it was last time there was severe global shake-up (WWII) but now there are far more nukes and nuclear countries, worse weather, far worse wealth inequality, more densely clustered living areas leading to unrest and disease. >>>> >>>> So the basic idea is 'it's already fucked, may as well make my disappointment clear.' >>>> >>>> For older people, Trump getting elected or not may determine whether the entire rest of your life is calm or is full of strife. For us, strife is pretty much guaranteed at some point. In fact, will hastening it in some way get us out the other side more quickly? A kind of 'just get it over with already' perspective. >>>> >>>> So--if the thing to avoid is horrible strife at some point in one's life, we don't see the election of Trump as really having a bearing on that. It will come sooner or later. Even if Biden is elected, it seems easy to believe that the world will still get worse even during his tenure, surveillance and wealth gap will increase, more pandemics, more natural disasters, more war. >>>> >>>> John--that's why. Because when you have 80 more years to live, it can seem like it doesn't matter either way. >>>> >>>> Maybe Trump losing will initiate a renaissance of compassion, technological improvement for the better of humankind, knowledge-gathering, and wealth redistribution. But more likely than not it will just be a brief positive bump, if even that. Or just a not-as-bad negative. >>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 6:19 AM John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 12:19 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> > I live in PA, so my vote definitely counts a lot. I actually agree with John not only that voting in safe states will likely matter in what happens, but also that voting for Biden specifically will be more important than just voting against Trump, because Biden will be helped by tallies the same way Trump is hurt by them. >>>>> >>>>> Good. >>>>> >>>>>> > That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for Biden instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning on. Idk >>>>> >>>>> I've tried, I've really tried, but I just don't understand that attitude. What on Earth is the downside to voting against a fascist who has put the constitution in mortal danger?! >>>>> >>>>> John K Clark >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 21:43:00 2020 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 16:43:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To clarify I do blame extended adolescence on ?society? because it requires a legal and social framework and constant enabling. It is not the natural order of things. SR Ballard > On Jul 31, 2020, at 3:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > >> You hope this attitude doesn?t spread? That must be a very large rock friend. >> I a missing the metaphor here. Living under a rock, maybe? >> >> 100% of under 30s I have met both online and IRL agree with the sentiment that it?s all ultimately pointless and horrible. Some do a better job ignoring it day-to-day compared to others. > Do any of these people have a good job? Happily married? College education? These people do exist, you know. I have to doubt that if they have these things they are as depressed as the ones who may be stuck to their computers (which a lot of people need to get away from, I think. Maybe you just don't know many of these people.) >> >> Even before the pandemic, under 30s have experienced profound isolation, extended adolescence, a plethora of parasocial relationships and a dearth of real ones, overwhelming screentime, lack of personal relationships. > How can you blame these things on society? Especially extended adolescence - that is all up the person. It reads like a bunch of lazy sluggards to me, who won't help themselves and are still living at home. Good friends are something you have to seek and friendship you have to work at. >> >> Decline of religiousity means decreased social networks and lack of meaning in life, lack of opportunities to both give and receive altruism. > It sounds as if those people need a crutch. Society is not forcing anyone to be less religious. If they can't find a meaning in life, maybe they could work at being a better person. That's enough meaning for most of us. I also have to doubt that people cannot find ways to help the needy of all flavors. There are plenty of charitable organizations where you can volunteer. Some specious logic here. >> >> Constant movement both within cities and across nations prevents a sense of community. >> Again, you can't blame this on society. >> >> Decline of cultural monoliths means lack of shared popular culture. Job opportunities are poor, housing is expensive, and university debt is suffocating. > I am not sure what a cultural monolith is. It seems to me that there are so many cultures out there, esp. in pop music, that if you can't find a niche you are just too picky. I fully agree about jobs, which have been underpaid for many years (while the rich get richer). And college debt is a national disgrace. >> >> Regardless of the material facts of the situation, poor opportunities and lack of community coupled with a lack of leadership create a trifecta of human emotional misery. > Just who is supposed to provide leadership for your personal life? Politicians? Rock stars? TV gurus? What happened to family and friends? > bill w >> The WWs in the US did not suffer from those. The Depression was a somewhat mixed bag in that regard. >> >> People can be happy regardless of their material poverty as long as they have a strong sense of community and goals. Even if that goal is just ?don?t let my family starve?. >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> On Jul 31, 2020, at 9:53 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >>> >>> We younger people have very little hope for the future. will >>> >>> Have you heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Of course you have. My parents lived through two WWs and a deep Depression. I never heard them say that any of that ruined their lives. You just did what you had to do and moved on. We were lower middle class. Didn't have a lot but bought new cars and always had food on the table. And so on. >>> >>> I hope your attitude doesn't spread. Last thing we need is a national emotional depression. Of course most of us will grieve if the election doesn't go our way, but honestly, we have lived through the last four years and could live through four more years - not happy, but surviving and trying to make our personal lives mean something. That's all we really can control: our own lives. Don't give up on them. >>> >>> bill w >>> >>>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 9:45 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >>>> Apathy, disgust with two party system, hopelessness. >>>> >>>> It may be harder to understand for older people. >>>> >>>> We younger people have very little hope for the future. While you guys were excited for the future as kids, young adults, and beyond, we have no hope. Geopolitical instability is increasing, there are pandemics, climate change, and increasingly polarized and violent populations in many countries. We are so salty at this that at times we literally no longer care what happens, and would rather 'watch the world burn' out of spite and the fact that said burning seems inevitable at this point. The world is more fucked up than it was last time there was severe global shake-up (WWII) but now there are far more nukes and nuclear countries, worse weather, far worse wealth inequality, more densely clustered living areas leading to unrest and disease. >>>> >>>> So the basic idea is 'it's already fucked, may as well make my disappointment clear.' >>>> >>>> For older people, Trump getting elected or not may determine whether the entire rest of your life is calm or is full of strife. For us, strife is pretty much guaranteed at some point. In fact, will hastening it in some way get us out the other side more quickly? A kind of 'just get it over with already' perspective. >>>> >>>> So--if the thing to avoid is horrible strife at some point in one's life, we don't see the election of Trump as really having a bearing on that. It will come sooner or later. Even if Biden is elected, it seems easy to believe that the world will still get worse even during his tenure, surveillance and wealth gap will increase, more pandemics, more natural disasters, more war. >>>> >>>> John--that's why. Because when you have 80 more years to live, it can seem like it doesn't matter either way. >>>> >>>> Maybe Trump losing will initiate a renaissance of compassion, technological improvement for the better of humankind, knowledge-gathering, and wealth redistribution. But more likely than not it will just be a brief positive bump, if even that. Or just a not-as-bad negative. >>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 6:19 AM John Clark via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 12:19 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> > I live in PA, so my vote definitely counts a lot. I actually agree with John not only that voting in safe states will likely matter in what happens, but also that voting for Biden specifically will be more important than just voting against Trump, because Biden will be helped by tallies the same way Trump is hurt by them. >>>>> >>>>> Good. >>>>> >>>>>> > That being said, I still haven't convinced myself to vote for Biden instead of just not voting this year like I have been planning on. Idk >>>>> >>>>> I've tried, I've really tried, but I just don't understand that attitude. What on Earth is the downside to voting against a fascist who has put the constitution in mortal danger?! >>>>> >>>>> John K Clark >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 22:03:06 2020 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 15:03:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] the "humble Conex" box (was Re: Sharpiegate) Message-ID: robot at ultimax.com wrote: henson at gmail.com> replied to John Clark: [snip] >> Ultimately, you can blame this on the Harvard model of how to run a >> business, a SCOTUS decision, and the humble shipping container. > Put those items in reverse order and you'll have their correct importance, Keith. I won't argue about the relative importance. A case can be made that those boxes were more disruptive than smartphones. > In the first edition of "Where To?" in 1950 Robert A Heinlein wrote something like "there is some device, new but seemingly humble, that will change the world. We just don't know which." At the time he thought it was the transistor but by the time of the second edition in in 1965, he dismissed that as a trivial forecast but said the mystery device was still out there, unidentified. RAH revisited his predictions one more time, in /Expanded Universe/ (1980). RAH was almost on time in 1950. I think the "device" was the "humble shipping container" as Keith puts it. For starters, the Conex box created modern China. I was certainly a big factor. It also wiped out the garment business in the US. > Remember the proverb that was attributed to Trotsky? "You may not be interested in War, but War is interested in you." He was channeling Nietzsche, who said, "if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." Well, container shipping is like that. Sure you can more easily export your goods to the world, but that sword cuts both ways--the entire world can reach into your front door. By reducing shipping losses, it put all the low wage workers in the world in direct competition with each other. > My late father Robt. Kennedy Jr. was third ass't engineer on the N.S. Savannah maiden voyage and ~5 yrs after. Regrettably, the most advanced break-bulk cargo ship in the world at the time she was designed, 1956, she was obsolete before she slipped down the ways to the water in 1960 or so. For Malcolm McLean invented the shipping container and built the first containership, the S.S. Ideal X in 1956. Ironic, that. > When the president of the longshoreman's union saw the S.S. Ideal X on her first sea trial with a load of boxes and was asked at dockside for his feelings about the event by a reporter, he replied "I'd like to sink that son of a b*tch". Honest answer at any rate. So much shrinkage went "poof" altering forever the most corrupt violent mafia-infested labor union in America. (Which was McLean's real motive for inventing it.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Waterfront > Later on, my old man left the Savannah and went to work for McLean himself, driving what was then the first true and biggest containership in the world, the S.S. Elizabethport. Talk about being there when history is made . . . . Keith K3 On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 10:28:33 -0700, Keith Henson replied to John Clark: [snip] > The only effective votes for Trump were in the states that went for > him. I doubt there are many on this list (if any) who live in such > places. > > Over 30 years ago, I asked (but could not answer then) the question of > why economic downturns were associated with upsurges of far-right > neo-Nazi activity. The places where people voted for him were largely > places where the economic activity has been hollowed out, jobs shipped > out of the country. > > Ultimately, you can blame this on the Harvard model of how to run a > business, a SCOTUS decision, and the humble shipping container. . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Best wishes, Keith From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 22:46:34 2020 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 15:46:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <236AD0D9-3807-4E8C-979C-750D2ACA32A3@gmail.com> On Jul 31, 2020, at 2:49 PM, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?To clarify I do blame extended adolescence on ?society? because it requires a legal and social framework and constant enabling. It is not the natural order of things. > > SR Ballard What is the ?natural order of things?? The way I view it is there?s always this attitude that something is wrong with the young. Forgive the expression, but don?t fall prey to the Boomer mindset. (It?s strange because I?m sure when Boomers were young, they were doing stuff their elders thought would end civilization if not the species. You know, stuff like having premarital sex and smoking pot.;) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emerhorne at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 20:04:16 2020 From: emerhorne at gmail.com (Tristan Linck) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:04:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Who has a vote that counts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2020-07-29 14:28, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: > As a fun, informal poll, I?d like to ask the following questions: > > Is your state a swing-state, or is it considered a ?grab? for a party? > > Is your county or city politically aligned with your state, or does it face the ?opposite? way? > > In political elections, Does you vote actually influence anything on a state level? County? City? Or are you caught voting very hard against the tide? > > For myself: > I live in Texas, solidly Red. I live in San Antonio, generally Blue. My vote matters for local offices but not anything past the County, and maybe not even then. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat Ohio has a reputation as a swing state, but it's been moving redward the past few years. My county is broadly blue-leaning, but local elections often are competitive. More locally, the city is solidly blue, the outskirts are infrared, and I live in the deep purple region between the two. Overall, voting in my district does feel meaningful compared to other places I have seen.