From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 1 00:36:23 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 16:36:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] spacex landing on boat In-Reply-To: References: <007401d6dfc4$96fdd550$c4f97ff0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00cb01d6dfd6$22356b90$66a042b0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] spacex landing on boat >?With space technology, it seems, most people assume a thing is impossible until it is done, no matter how theoretically easy it should be. >?It seems that even a new type of nut and bolt won't be trusted to work in space until it has been demonstrated in space, even if there are literally zero applicable space-specific factors that might call into question the relevance of a ground demonstration. (A nut and bolt doesn't care about zero gravity, radiation, or vacuum.) That landing feet first on a boat business is all done in a 1 g environment, but ja I know what you mean. Space is a crazy unforgiving environment: you can?t get to stuff to fix it. So your reliability of everything has to be in the ridiculous zone. Any one goof anywhere can wreck your whole mish. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 01:39:53 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 17:39:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] spacex landing on boat In-Reply-To: <007401d6dfc4$96fdd550$c4f97ff0$@rainier66.com> References: <007401d6dfc4$96fdd550$c4f97ff0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Dec 31, 2020, at 2:32 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > I share this Twitter user?s attitude about how cool this is, but disagree with his comment on impossible. It was generally agreed by about the late 1990s that it is possible to land a rocket feet first. > > https://twitter.com/i/status/1343959265988411394 > > spike I think his statement ? ?Still kinda hard to believe this was considered *impossible* 5 years ago? ? is vague enough to border on being meaningless. He doesn?t say by whom and even when you say ?generally? it?s unstated who you mean. I gather you mean by experts in the field and not, say, the general public or even educated members of the general public. By the way, I was thinking of how back before SpaceX accomplished this I thought it was very high risk. Not impossible, but definitely not the route I?d advise taking. Am I wee too cautious or was SpaceX just lucky? (Or is that SpaceX is different enough in its aggressive product development process that my opinion (non-expert, of course) might apply to your ?average? rocket company but not SpaceX?) Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 01:55:03 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 01:55:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] spacex landing on boat In-Reply-To: <00cb01d6dfd6$22356b90$66a042b0$@rainier66.com> References: <007401d6dfc4$96fdd550$c4f97ff0$@rainier66.com> <00cb01d6dfd6$22356b90$66a042b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 12:38 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] spacex landing on boat > >?With space technology, it seems, most people assume a thing is impossible until it is done, no matter how theoretically easy it should be. > > >?It seems that even a new type of nut and bolt won't be trusted to work in space until it has been demonstrated in space, even if there are literally zero applicable space-specific factors that might call into question the relevance of a ground demonstration. (A nut and bolt doesn't care about zero gravity, radiation, or vacuum.) > > That landing feet first on a boat business is all done in a 1 g environment, but ja I know what you mean. A lot of stuff goes wrong or can go wrong before getting to space or when returning from it. Without looking, I'm going to guess a good chunk of failed missions are the thing never makes it to orbit. At least, looking back on many early spaceflight missions, that seemed to be the case. More recent failures have been the thing blowing up on the pad or just off. And, yeah, a few, with SpaceX, are the thing lands and flops over or misses the platform. All stuff happening close to the ground. And the landing system has to travel up into space and return, no? So it has to survive and partly operate in a region far from the ground. > Space is a crazy unforgiving environment: you can?t get to stuff to fix it. So > your reliability of everything has to be in the ridiculous zone. Any one goof > anywhere can wreck your whole mish. It's obvious that some of the critical systems involved -- especially anything to do with propulsion and guidance and anything coming into contact with the air at high velocity or temperature -- can fail in a quite catastrophic manner taking down the whole vehicle often enough. And this can make for a nice fireworks show -- adding to the availability bias for the general public, investors, and the like. But I wonder about a lot of systems that aren't mission critical. If sometimes the standards are wee too strict. For instance, yeah, if an electronics component is mission critical, test the crap out of it and delay implementation for many years to be sure. But why not allow non-critical electronics up there -- for instance, to the ISS -- before it's been fully certified? In some cases, yeah, the thing might fail or do weird shit, but then that's data that can be fed into faster development cycles, no? Regards, Dan From bronto at pobox.com Fri Jan 1 02:39:00 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 18:39:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the reincarnation menu Message-ID: <13040eb5-1db4-af55-cca6-42b311263f00@pobox.com> For people in cryosuspension, I imagine several modes of revival: ? repair of the original brain; ? destructive scan of the original brain, with copy to ? a cloned brain; ? a synthetic brain; housed in ? the original body, repaired; ? a clone-grown body; ? a synthetic body; ? a virtual environment. So, at least a dozen possibilities, with some hybrids between them. They won't all become available at the same time, so I'm wondering about policy. Do any of the cryo operators invite members to say, for example, "Don't revive me until you can do it in my original flesh (because anything else is creepy)" versus "Revive me by whichever method becomes available first with a reasonable quality of life"? What other checkboxes would you want to see? Heh, if you're revived in what seems like your original body, how will you know it's not a simulation? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 1 02:43:40 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 18:43:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] spacex landing on boat In-Reply-To: References: <007401d6dfc4$96fdd550$c4f97ff0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <010001d6dfe7$ea55f6b0$bf01e410$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] spacex landing on boat On Dec 31, 2020, at 2:32 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: I share this Twitter user?s attitude about how cool this is, but disagree with his comment on impossible. It was generally agreed by about the late 1990s that it is possible to land a rocket feet first. https://twitter.com/i/status/1343959265988411394 spike >?I think his statement ? ?Still kinda hard to believe this was considered *impossible* 5 years ago? ? is vague enough to border on being meaningless. He doesn?t say by whom and even when you say ?generally? it?s unstated who you mean. I gather you mean by experts in the field and not, say, the general public or even educated members of the general public? Ja, not by 5 yrs ago. By then the consensus of the people in the biz I think would have been the feet first landing is possible. There were credible papers being presented in that direction as much as 30 yrs ago by guys who understood control loops, structural dynamics, performance of thrust vector control, all the elements. I might be flattering myself here (but hey, somebody hasta do it) and I am watching for my own confirmation bias. But I give a lotta credit to the big advances made in fiber optic angular accelerometers. I thought that whole concept was just wicked cool first time I heard of it, and they were returning astonishing numbers: their speed in feeding back info to central processors in the control loop was mind-blowing, and they were handing it accurate numbers. Working on that gyro accelerometer was one of the most exciting projects I ever did. The structural dynamics modeling advanced some, materials not so much really (we were using good old 6061 alloy for nearly everything the whole time) the actuator tech advanced some. But it was the calculation end of it, getting the signals from the accelerometers enough times per second, deciding what to do and getting it done before the booster had time to get squirrelly, that was what got this done. I looked over the control models and thought around 2000 or 2001 that someone would manage the feet first lander. I didn?t know it was only 15 yrs off. I mighta guessed at least 20. >?By the way, I was thinking of how back before SpaceX accomplished this I thought it was very high risk? You were right: it was a crazy high risk project. Those landings are still high risk: I wouldn?t be surprised if they lose a rocket about every 10 flights. >? Am I wee too cautious or was SpaceX just lucky? Dan I am willing to credit the guys at SpaceX. Their controls guys are just on it. I bet they enjoy going to the conferences these days: the ordinary controls proles would surely treat them with a lotta respect. I had an idea: go see if I could get a job at SpaceX trimming the hedges or cleaning the restrooms, get a SpaceX badge, go to the controls conferences, act like a bigshot, then when the SpaceX guys don?t know who I am, act like it?s so secret I don?t even know what I am doing. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 03:20:26 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 22:20:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the reincarnation menu In-Reply-To: <13040eb5-1db4-af55-cca6-42b311263f00@pobox.com> References: <13040eb5-1db4-af55-cca6-42b311263f00@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 9:40 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Do any of the cryo operators invite members to say, for example, "Don't > revive me until you can do it in my original flesh (because anything > else is creepy)" versus "Revive me by whichever method becomes available > first with a reasonable quality of life"? What other checkboxes would > you want to see? > > Heh, if you're revived in what seems like your original body, how will > you know it's not a simulation? > I would expect a staged process to acclimate to how the world is working by the time relife is possible. I anticipate humanity becomes a federated hive mind. How me_v2 learns the etiquette and social protocol of that world is probably an analog of consciousness coalescing is around a newborn/baby now. Surely there will be some parental or mentor analog. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 06:11:23 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 14:11:23 +0800 Subject: [ExI] China has detained more than 500 people for questioning coronavirus Message-ID: Chinese authorities have arrested at least 500 people since the beginning of 2020 for talking about the coronavirus, a new report claims. "The individuals have been arrested for various reasons surrounding the coronavirus pandemic that range from pointing out long wait times at funeral homes to criticizing the Communist Party, a report by China Digital Times states. China has taken several measures to keep its image intact as the novel coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China. The report notes that Zhang Xuezhong, 43, was recently arrested for criticizing the Communist Party over the party?s handling of the coronavirus. Zhang posted on WeChat that Communist Party?s actions regarding the virus show that ?the government?s long-term tight control society and people has almost completely destroyed the organization and self-help capabilities of Chinese society.? Zhang isn?t the first outspoken critic of Chinese authorities to be punished. Ren Zhiqiang also went missing after he called Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping a power-hungry ?clown? for his handling of the coronavirus." Additionally, Ai Fen, a doctor in China, went missing after saying her boss tried to silence her early warnings about the coronavirus. Given China?s frequent habit of silencing and detaining critics, experts believe it is likely she was detained by Chinese authorities, the New York Post reported . Topics likely to get Chinese subject arrested include: listing the names of coronavirus victims, questioning the official number of victims and the number of infected, detailing first-hand accounts of what?s happening in Wuhan, and complaining about censorship." For those of you on the list who felt China's leaders simply did the best they could under the circumstances, and that they don't deserve to be singled out for the blame... https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/05/china-has-detained-more-than-500-people-for-questioning-coronavirus/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 12:35:12 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 20:35:12 +0800 Subject: [ExI] spacex landing on boat In-Reply-To: <010001d6dfe7$ea55f6b0$bf01e410$@rainier66.com> References: <007401d6dfc4$96fdd550$c4f97ff0$@rainier66.com> <010001d6dfe7$ea55f6b0$bf01e410$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: This makes me think of so many classic science fiction films from the 1950's, where the spaceships land just like that! : ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdSxDNnqRlo https://www.newscientist.com/article/2190418-elon-musk-reveals-starship-test-rocket-that-looks-like-1950s-sci-fi/ On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 10:46 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] spacex landing on boat > > > > On Dec 31, 2020, at 2:32 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I share this Twitter user?s attitude about how cool this is, but disagree > with his comment on impossible. It was generally agreed by about the late > 1990s that it is possible to land a rocket feet first. > > > > https://twitter.com/i/status/1343959265988411394 > > > > spike > > > > >?I think his statement ? ?Still kinda hard to believe this was considered > *impossible* 5 years ago? ? is vague enough to border on being meaningless. > He doesn?t say by whom and even when you say ?generally? it?s unstated who > you mean. I gather you mean by experts in the field and not, say, the > general public or even educated members of the general public? > > > > Ja, not by 5 yrs ago. By then the consensus of the people in the biz I > think would have been the feet first landing is possible. There were > credible papers being presented in that direction as much as 30 yrs ago by > guys who understood control loops, structural dynamics, performance of > thrust vector control, all the elements. > > > > I might be flattering myself here (but hey, somebody hasta do it) and I am > watching for my own confirmation bias. But I give a lotta credit to the > big advances made in fiber optic angular accelerometers. I thought that > whole concept was just wicked cool first time I heard of it, and they were > returning astonishing numbers: their speed in feeding back info to central > processors in the control loop was mind-blowing, and they were handing it > accurate numbers. Working on that gyro accelerometer was one of the most > exciting projects I ever did. > > > > The structural dynamics modeling advanced some, materials not so much > really (we were using good old 6061 alloy for nearly everything the whole > time) the actuator tech advanced some. But it was the calculation end of > it, getting the signals from the accelerometers enough times per second, > deciding what to do and getting it done before the booster had time to get > squirrelly, that was what got this done. I looked over the control models > and thought around 2000 or 2001 that someone would manage the feet first > lander. I didn?t know it was only 15 yrs off. I mighta guessed at least > 20. > > > > > > > > >?By the way, I was thinking of how back before SpaceX accomplished this I > thought it was very high risk? > > > > You were right: it was a crazy high risk project. Those landings are > still high risk: I wouldn?t be surprised if they lose a rocket about every > 10 flights. > > > > >? Am I wee too cautious or was SpaceX just lucky? Dan > > > > > > I am willing to credit the guys at SpaceX. Their controls guys are just > on it. I bet they enjoy going to the conferences these days: the ordinary > controls proles would surely treat them with a lotta respect. > > > > I had an idea: go see if I could get a job at SpaceX trimming the hedges > or cleaning the restrooms, get a SpaceX badge, go to the controls > conferences, act like a bigshot, then when the SpaceX guys don?t know who I > am, act like it?s so secret I don?t even know what I am doing. > > > > 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 12:48:21 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 20:48:21 +0800 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Damn! Well, now robots can out-dance at least half of the human race! Lol When Boston Dynamics can make their humanoid robots slender enough to have human female proportions, and then they combine that with "love doll" artistry, the world may never be the same. I suspect we will see such robotic companions within twenty years or less... John On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 12:09 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Boston Dynamics? latest smoking hot cool video: > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw&feature=youtu.be > > > > Musk says it is the real thing. Is this a fun time to be alive or what? > > > > 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 12:59:52 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 20:59:52 +0800 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: <000d01d6df11$41b83e40$c528bac0$@rainier66.com> References: <00e001d6defb$58a78720$09f69560$@rainier66.com> <011601d6df05$2d5e65c0$881b3140$@rainier66.com> <000d01d6df11$41b83e40$c528bac0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike wrote: "We are starting on the endgame of a pandemic which killed a bunch of people. Imagine a far worse version of it where instead of the fatality rate being a coupla percent, the survival rate was a coupla percent, and it was far more contagious. No national borders can stop it. In that situation, the unarmed would continue to devour each other down to the last man. But the well-armed prepper can defend her food cache, survive to eventually repopulate the planet with those who understand the value of the right to bear arms and the wisdom to be prepared for catastrophe." Guns would definitely help in such a situation, but not be a cure all for personal safety. A small group with guns and ammo could be overrun by large mobs of desperate and hungry unarmed people, or also by a bigger or better coordinated group of armed humans than your own. I think the key factor is living in a tucked away or even totally hidden place, where the hungry and violent hordes don't come across you and your food cache. Keep in mind that the wealthy elites of America, long before this pandemic even got started, were hiring specialty construction companies to create multi-million dollar custom build underground facilities, so they could sit out for several years if necessary, a civilization crippling pandemic or similar disaster, while the proles rob and murder each other on the surface. John On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 9:18 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ....> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat > > Subject: Re: [ExI] very informative > > On Wed, 30 Dec 2020 at 23:43, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > > ... legalizing dope is also perfectly compatible with shelters, food > hoarding, collecting guns and ammo. I see no logical tension at all there. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > > > >...That's the difference between USA and Europe. > Europe has preppers (or survivalists) as well, but without the guns and > ammo. Well, except maybe farmer types who might have shotguns for rabbits, > game birds, etc. > From the viewpoint of Europe, the USA preppers look like the heavily-armed > militia movement people that we have seen on TV, dressed in camo and > struggling with carrying heavy machine guns around. They don't look at all > like liberals to Europeans. > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > > Ja OK but look at it another way. The camo and machine guns are pure > Hollywood. Neither of those are useful, certainly not required. Most > serious preppers look just like everyone else. You would have no way of > knowing they have a huge cache of food. > > We are starting on the endgame of a pandemic which killed a bunch of > people. > Imagine a far worse version of it where instead of the fatality rate being > a > coupla percent, the survival rate was a coupla percent, and it was far more > contagious. No national borders can stop it. In that situation, the > unarmed would continue to devour each other down to the last man. But the > well-armed prepper can defend her food cache, survive to eventually > repopulate the planet with those who understand the value of the right to > bear arms and the wisdom to be prepared for catastrophe. > > We used to think in terms of nuclear war, but now plenty of us recognize a > really bad pandemic is as big or even bigger risk. > > 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 sparge at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 14:33:09 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 09:33:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 7:48 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > When Boston Dynamics can make their humanoid robots slender enough to have > human female proportions, and then they combine that with "love doll" > artistry, the world may never be the same. > I don't see Hyundai getting into the sexbot business. And I don't think BD-priced sexbots would fly off the shelves. But, yeah, sexbots will be made and they'll get better and better. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 1 14:34:08 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 06:34:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: References: <00e001d6defb$58a78720$09f69560$@rainier66.com> <011601d6df05$2d5e65c0$881b3140$@rainier66.com> <000d01d6df11$41b83e40$c528bac0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <016701d6e04b$2a833820$7f89a860$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Grigg via extropy-chat >?Keep in mind that the wealthy elites of America long before this pandemic even got started, were hiring specialty construction companies to create multi-million dollar custom build underground facilities ? John Of America? Why only America? And why only wealthy elites? It wouldn?t cost all that much to cache survival supplies for a coupla years methinks. It would take determination for sure, but consider how many ordinary proles we see whirring around town in Teslas costing in the upper end of the 5 digit range, some in the 6 digits, when any used 4 digit dinosaur burner would do the same job (granted with less? elegance.) There is money around for doing things like this should one decide it is the thing to do. It wouldn?t even necessarily be underground: that runs up cost. It would only need to be defensible. The underground notion is a holdover from the days when we were thinking nuclear blast. But now it might be the risk of that is subsiding. On this forum we have discussed the notion of an off-planet lifeboat so that humans could again populate the planet in a catastrophe, but it appears to me individual lifeboats could be assembled down here in the dirty now and now. Regardless of the virus, it is conceivable that a small minority of humans could survive to repopulate the place. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 14:47:34 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 22:47:34 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? Message-ID: This is home security cctv footage of strange lights within a man's home. I realize this could be caused by a camera malfunction, light hitting dust motes, a hoax/hack, or for that matter, the spirit of a deceased person. But then I believe in an afterlife of some sort. I have had the thought, what if this is a form of Earth life that is completely alien to what we understand about reality... Could there be a "living" thing of only electromagnetic energy, invisible to the naked eye? Perhaps these entities have the intelligence of an insect, or even a bird... And can they shift between dimensions? I just don't know. https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/video-odd-orb-leaves-pastor-unsettled/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 1 15:01:38 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 07:01:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] homers vs non Message-ID: <018e01d6e04f$022e1120$068a3360$@rainier66.com> The county where I live offers data on covid fatalities broken down by nursing home (green) and non-nursing home (blue.) The nursing home fatalities started a few weeks after the non-homers and the two cumulative numbers tracked for most of the duration. On 14 December, they were equal at 282 each (the county population is a bit over 2 million.) Looking at today's numbers, since parity was reached on 14 December, and even for the coupla weeks before that, the nursing home fatalities have become a very dominant majority. Last week we had 34 homers die vs 20 non-homers. I track this for a reason, not just because I have friends who live in those facilities or anticipate doing so in the foreseeable. That's part of it of course. It also goes towards my continued efforts in understanding the conditions in which this virus spreads. My advice hasn't changed, for my elderly friends anticipating the move: hold for now if that is an option. If you can afford to pay a prole to come in and fix your meals, do that instead. The vaccine is here and we are told that it works. Hold back for about 6 more months if you can. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 24943 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 16:04:40 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 16:04:40 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 1 Jan 2021 at 14:47, John Grigg via extropy-chat wrote: > > This is home security cctv footage of strange lights within a man's home. I realize this could be caused by a camera malfunction, light hitting dust motes, a hoax/hack, or for that matter, the spirit of a deceased person. But then I believe in an afterlife of some sort. I have had the thought, what if this is a form of Earth life that is completely alien to what we understand about reality... Could there be a "living" thing of only electromagnetic energy, invisible to the naked eye? Perhaps these entities have the intelligence of an insect, or even a bird... And can they shift between dimensions? I just don't know. > > https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/video-odd-orb-leaves-pastor-unsettled/ > > _______________________________________________ Photographic orbs are a well-known phenomena that have been around almost as long as cameras. The new features of night-vision cameras and infra-red detectors mean that they show up a bit more often. They are caused by floating dust motes close to the camera lens which cause them to be out of focus and result in a blurred orb. That's why they appear in photos, but people in the room don't see them. They appear to move as the dust mote drifts around in the air near the camera. This is one of many articles explaining what is going on-- BillK From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 16:15:40 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 00:15:40 +0800 Subject: [ExI] This 'crazy beast' that lived with the dinosaurs was unlike other creatures Message-ID: "Scientists say they're baffled by the strange appearance of a 66-million-year-old opossum-sized mammal dubbed the Adalatherium -- which translates as "crazy beast." "Knowing what we know about the skeletal anatomy of all living and extinct mammals, it is difficult to imagine that a mammal like Adalatherium could have evolved," David Krause, of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, said in a release. "It bends and even breaks a lot of rules." On Friday, Krause, along with the New York Institute of Technology's Simone Hoffmann and their team, published a 234-page study of a fossilized skeleton of Adalatherium unearthed in 1999. They first announced the results of 20 years of research in April, in the magazine Nature. Today's in-depth paper appears in the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir Series , an annual publication that takes deep-dive looks at the most important vertebrate fossils. The researchers describe the creature as having had muscular hind limbs like a crocodile's, powerful front legs, rabbitlike front teeth and odd back teeth that look completely unlike those of any other known mammal. It also had an unusual space between the bones at the top of its snout and more trunk vertebrae than most other mammals." https://www.cnet.com/news/this-crazy-beast-that-lived-with-the-dinosaurs-was-unlike-other-creatures/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 1 16:20:27 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 08:20:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01b001d6e05a$04a97060$0dfc5120$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat ... >...Photographic orbs are a well-known phenomena that have been around almost as long as cameras. ... but people in the room don't see them. They appear to move as the dust mote drifts around in the air near the camera. This is one of many articles explaining what is going on-- BillK _______________________________________________ This can be demonstrated with the proper lighting and a roll of toilet paper. The material that settles on our furniture we call dust isn't really dust for the most part in most parts of the country. Places where it rains often still have that phenomenon, even though rain knocks down actual dust particles outdoors. A lot of what we call dust is actually toilet paper lint. I saw a YouTube video where someone demonstrated jillions of these linty particles go airborne every time you rip off a few in the bathroom. This also explains why the bathroom gets linty faster than the more remote rooms in the house. If you wear cotton clothing, that contributes as well: individual fibers from the cotton will constantly be breaking off and floating about. A near-field object in a camera lens can do exactly what John describes. Of course it could be the ghosts arranged for that explanation to cover their evanescent tracks, the sneaky bastards. Easy experiment: set up the camera which took the ghost images, set up another camera right beside it with those modern nifty small apertures, like the ones on your Apple phone, see if the ghost only appears in the large aperture camera. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 16:43:10 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 00:43:10 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Best chair for 2020 and beyond: Top chair picks Message-ID: I thought I would ask the list members what kind of chair they use when they are on their computer. Are you satisfied with it? Is it sufficiently ergonomic? Is it easy on your posterior? And what would be your dream chair? I no longer play video games very much, but I do like the look of these pretty expensive gaming chairs. I presently use an old chair in the $30 price range! Lol Years ago, I read a humorous science fiction short story about a man who buys the "ultimate" super high tech recliner, which takes such good care of him, that he never has the need to get up and leave it! Finally, his fed-up wife burns the house down out of desperation, but the chair shields him from the heat and smoke, while she perishes. I think it was written back in the seventies. https://www.cnet.com/news/best-gaming-chair-for-2020-top-chair-picks-for-pc-or-console-gaming/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 16:51:04 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 00:51:04 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Netflix celebrates the death of 2020 with a hilarious new special Message-ID: I can't wait to see this satire about the past difficult year... And done by the people behind Black Mirror! *"Death to 2020* is an original Netflix creation, a mockumentary from the *Black Mirror* creators? minds that will make sure that you remember all the bad things that happened this year. It?s brilliantly done, featuring an impressive cast of actors playing fake personalities or fake regular people ready to express their thoughts, professional opinions, or feelings on what happened in 2020 via documentary-style interviews." https://bgr.com/2020/12/31/netflix-death-to-2020-review-perfect-new-years-eve-celebration/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 17:09:51 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 11:09:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: sexbots will be made and they'll get better and better. -Dave And many wives will be thankful bill w On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 8:35 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 7:48 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> When Boston Dynamics can make their humanoid robots slender enough to >> have human female proportions, and then they combine that with "love doll" >> artistry, the world may never be the same. >> > > I don't see Hyundai getting into the sexbot business. And I don't think > BD-priced sexbots would fly off the shelves. But, yeah, sexbots will be > made and they'll get better and better. > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 17:28:42 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 01:28:42 +0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Forget_Your_Five-Year_Plan=3A_What_If_We_Visuali?= =?utf-8?q?zed_Humanity=E2=80=99s_Future_in_Centuries=2C_Millennia?= =?utf-8?q?=2C_and_Beyond=3F?= Message-ID: ?Where do you see yourself in five years?? It?s a classic job interview question, designed to probe your level of ambition and aspiration. And it probes about as far ahead as many of us are likely to think: with so many distractions in the here and now, so many crises and challenges and opportunities that will arise, and so much that seems likely to change, who can meticulously sit and plan for decades ahead? This isn?t unique to humans as individuals; it?s true of organizations as well. Financial investment is motivated by the desire to realize a profit, usually on a short timescale. Our political systems are dominated by short four- or five-year electoral cycles. The ever-accelerating pace of technological innovation makes the long-term future difficult to visualize?and also, perhaps, misleads us into thinking that change can only take place in years or decades, rather than centuries or millennia. Our own limited lifespans often set the upper limit to the timescales we consider: at most, those who have children might start to imagine what life will be like when they grow old. Unfortunately, it?s precisely our short-term thinking that could mean life is far worse for future generations than it might otherwise be. How can we combat this deeply embedded short-termism and get people to think about centuries, millennia, and beyond?" What are your long-term goals? : ) https://singularityhub.com/2020/12/31/forget-your-five-year-plan-what-if-we-visualized-humanitys-future-in-centuries-millennia-and-beyond/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 1 17:32:58 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 09:32:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> >?sexbots will be made and they'll get better and better. >?-Dave And many wives will be thankful bill w ? >?I don't see Hyundai getting into the sexbot business. And I don't think BD-priced sexbots would fly off the shelves. But, yeah, sexbots will be made and they'll get better and better. -Dave Ja to all, but think past this please. As a mechanical puzzle, making a sexbot is surprisingly difficult, if it is to be worth a damn. It has long been on my mind: how to help people who are aged and lonely. The young and attractive can find ways to fill their needs (even if at great expense and risk.) The elderly often cannot or will not, for understandable reasons. We might be able to use listen-bots to fulfill that need more than we need sexbots. This leads to the observation that listen-bots can be software rather than expensive? um? soft hardware? I can see a bot that provides a warm bed partner but not really a sex partner. Something like that wouldn?t be hard to do and might have its value. We can do listen-bots, particularly for the elderly: they have a lot of stories. In many cases, that?s all they have. I have witnessed firsthand nursing home patients who have no family, no visitors, nothing. They sit quietly and waste away. Alternative to software (avatar) talk-bot: a mechanical listen-bot could be a pretty simple affordable device: rides in a wheelchair, does some facial movement, has speech recognition and generation. Something like that might help the elderly. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zoielsoy at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 18:07:27 2021 From: zoielsoy at gmail.com (Angel Z. Lopez) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 13:07:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: <01b001d6e05a$04a97060$0dfc5120$@rainier66.com> References: <01b001d6e05a$04a97060$0dfc5120$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Everything has a logical explanation. On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 11:21 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 > ... > > > >...Photographic orbs are a well-known phenomena that have been around > almost as long as cameras. ... but people in the room don't see them. They > appear to move as the dust mote drifts around in the air near the camera. > This is one of many articles explaining what is going on-- > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > > This can be demonstrated with the proper lighting and a roll of toilet > paper. The material that settles on our furniture we call dust isn't > really > dust for the most part in most parts of the country. Places where it rains > often still have that phenomenon, even though rain knocks down actual dust > particles outdoors. A lot of what we call dust is actually toilet paper > lint. I saw a YouTube video where someone demonstrated jillions of these > linty particles go airborne every time you rip off a few in the bathroom. > This also explains why the bathroom gets linty faster than the more remote > rooms in the house. If you wear cotton clothing, that contributes as well: > individual fibers from the cotton will constantly be breaking off and > floating about. > > A near-field object in a camera lens can do exactly what John describes. > Of > course it could be the ghosts arranged for that explanation to cover their > evanescent tracks, the sneaky bastards. > > Easy experiment: set up the camera which took the ghost images, set up > another camera right beside it with those modern nifty small apertures, > like > the ones on your Apple phone, see if the ghost only appears in the large > aperture camera. > > 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 Jan 1 18:16:58 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 10:16:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: References: <01b001d6e05a$04a97060$0dfc5120$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005a01d6e06a$4bc33d90$e349b8b0$@rainier66.com> From: Angel Z. Lopez Subject: Re: [ExI] Paranormal activity? >>?This can be demonstrated with the proper lighting and a roll of toilet paper. The material that settles on our furniture we call dust isn't really dust? spike >?Everything has a logical explanation? Angel No way Jose! Were this the case, we would have some kind of explanation (logical or otherwise) for the popularity of the Kardashian sisters. I have been toying with an idea that Adrian invented during the fires last summer, that triangular prism indoor air filter notion. I bought a box of AC filters and a fan but never did put it all together. Looks to me like that would filter the TP debris and clothing lint out of the air. I have everything I need, just haven?t done it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 18:18:23 2021 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 13:18:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: References: <01b001d6e05a$04a97060$0dfc5120$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: A nebulous statement. Perhaps ghosts are logically sound and we just don't understand the physics yet. We don't understand consciousness, dark matter, dark energy, the fate of the universe, etc. I wouldn't be that surprised if a phenomenon that has been reported for millennia turns out to have an explanation rooted in physics. Perhaps not this video, but it's certainly logically possible. We know very little about reality, all things considered. On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 1:08 PM Angel Z. Lopez via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Everything has a logical explanation. > > On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 11:21 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 >> ... >> >> >> >...Photographic orbs are a well-known phenomena that have been around >> almost as long as cameras. ... but people in the room don't see them. They >> appear to move as the dust mote drifts around in the air near the camera. >> This is one of many articles explaining what is going on-- >> >> >> BillK >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> >> This can be demonstrated with the proper lighting and a roll of toilet >> paper. The material that settles on our furniture we call dust isn't >> really >> dust for the most part in most parts of the country. Places where it >> rains >> often still have that phenomenon, even though rain knocks down actual dust >> particles outdoors. A lot of what we call dust is actually toilet paper >> lint. I saw a YouTube video where someone demonstrated jillions of these >> linty particles go airborne every time you rip off a few in the bathroom. >> This also explains why the bathroom gets linty faster than the more remote >> rooms in the house. If you wear cotton clothing, that contributes as >> well: >> individual fibers from the cotton will constantly be breaking off and >> floating about. >> >> A near-field object in a camera lens can do exactly what John describes. >> Of >> course it could be the ghosts arranged for that explanation to cover their >> evanescent tracks, the sneaky bastards. >> >> Easy experiment: set up the camera which took the ghost images, set up >> another camera right beside it with those modern nifty small apertures, >> like >> the ones on your Apple phone, see if the ghost only appears in the large >> aperture camera. >> >> 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 18:24:21 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 12:24:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] football etc. Message-ID: I know that those who like religious symbolism will rejoice at the fact that Amonra St. Brown is playing football today. Happy New Year from Bill and Roz W -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 18:27:49 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 12:27:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: References: <01b001d6e05a$04a97060$0dfc5120$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Everything is physics; then it's chemistry; then it's biology; then it's psychology, the be-all end-all. ?? bill w On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 12:23 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > A nebulous statement. Perhaps ghosts are logically sound and we just > don't understand the physics yet. We don't understand consciousness, dark > matter, dark energy, the fate of the universe, etc. > > I wouldn't be that surprised if a phenomenon that has been reported for > millennia turns out to have an explanation rooted in physics. Perhaps not > this video, but it's certainly logically possible. We know very little > about reality, all things considered. > > On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 1:08 PM Angel Z. Lopez via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Everything has a logical explanation. >> >> On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 11:21 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 >>> ... >>> >>> >>> >...Photographic orbs are a well-known phenomena that have been around >>> almost as long as cameras. ... but people in the room don't see them. >>> They >>> appear to move as the dust mote drifts around in the air near the camera. >>> This is one of many articles explaining what is going on-- >>> >>> >>> BillK >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> >>> >>> This can be demonstrated with the proper lighting and a roll of toilet >>> paper. The material that settles on our furniture we call dust isn't >>> really >>> dust for the most part in most parts of the country. Places where it >>> rains >>> often still have that phenomenon, even though rain knocks down actual >>> dust >>> particles outdoors. A lot of what we call dust is actually toilet paper >>> lint. I saw a YouTube video where someone demonstrated jillions of these >>> linty particles go airborne every time you rip off a few in the bathroom. >>> This also explains why the bathroom gets linty faster than the more >>> remote >>> rooms in the house. If you wear cotton clothing, that contributes as >>> well: >>> individual fibers from the cotton will constantly be breaking off and >>> floating about. >>> >>> A near-field object in a camera lens can do exactly what John >>> describes. Of >>> course it could be the ghosts arranged for that explanation to cover >>> their >>> evanescent tracks, the sneaky bastards. >>> >>> Easy experiment: set up the camera which took the ghost images, set up >>> another camera right beside it with those modern nifty small apertures, >>> like >>> the ones on your Apple phone, see if the ghost only appears in the large >>> aperture camera. >>> >>> 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 18:27:59 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 12:27:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: <005a01d6e06a$4bc33d90$e349b8b0$@rainier66.com> References: <01b001d6e05a$04a97060$0dfc5120$@rainier66.com> <005a01d6e06a$4bc33d90$e349b8b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I bought a box of AC filters and a fan but never did put it all together. Looks to me like that would filter the TP debris and clothing lint out of the air. I have everything I need, just haven?t done it. spike You are what you wear, both inside and out. bill w On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 12:18 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* Angel Z. Lopez > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Paranormal activity? > > > > > > > > >>?This can be demonstrated with the proper lighting and a roll of toilet > paper. The material that settles on our furniture we call dust isn't > really > dust? spike > > > > > > >?Everything has a logical explanation? Angel > > > > > > No way Jose! Were this the case, we would have some kind of explanation > (logical or otherwise) for the popularity of the Kardashian sisters. > > > > I have been toying with an idea that Adrian invented during the fires last > summer, that triangular prism indoor air filter notion. I bought a box of > AC filters and a fan but never did put it all together. Looks to me like > that would filter the TP debris and clothing lint out of the air. I have > everything I need, just haven?t done 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 msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 18:38:38 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 13:38:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 12:34 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > We can do listen-bots, particularly for the elderly: they have a lot of > stories. In many cases, that?s all they have. I have witnessed firsthand > nursing home patients who have no family, no visitors, nothing. They sit > quietly and waste away. > > > > Alternative to software (avatar) talk-bot: a mechanical listen-bot could > be a pretty simple affordable device: rides in a wheelchair, does some > facial movement, has speech recognition and generation. Something like > that might help the elderly. > Over the many times that you have talked about this, I have considered that these machines could well provide telepresence for family members... my mom had assumed responsibility for care of an early friend and thanks to covid lockdown of the facility, my mom was not allowed entry so was unable to properly monitor supplies or laundry etc. There are privacy issues (HIPAA as well as colloquial "privacy") but it could be a powerful tool to make remote presence more visceral/embodied/immersive than the current camera+mic setup we're using. The barrier to listen-bot (which may well be alexa in a teddy ruxpin) is that nobody will talk to it any more than they've ever talked to an inanimate object. I think the solution is that the device must be conversational. This is where I know the GPT-n and some text to speach is probably "good enough" for a viable product. However, if this project is an excuse to get started, the "getting to know you" bot could build a knowledgebase... and the telepresence operator interface could navigate those topics... imagine if the next caregiver can enter a room and continue conversation where the last caregiver left (with AI providing fill-in conversation in the interim) Now abstract the caregivers to gamify the UI so the motivation is for the player to unlock "missing" information about the subject (a subject, the subject, w/e) if you've ever seen gamers relentless acquisition of 100% completion, you know how tenacious they can be. As a crowd-sourced process, the AI can mediate the actual interaction with our target human. This hybrid approach also helps the AI escape conversational attractors (which can be obsessions or physical distractions like pain or the weather) I don't think this needs be only an elder-care tool. I see it having other applications... all the way to the onboarding of newly-revived (thawed?) Cryonauts. Their "elder" status might make their life context >100s years obsolete. In exponential curves, those years are potentially orders of magnitude of subjective lifetimes worth of experience. How can we bring someone back to life if life no longer goes that far back? Maybe this is at the heart of our elder-neglect: mortality is nature's solution to irrelevance. If we aren't able to value gradnmom's experience, how can we expect the future to value our own? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 1 20:48:37 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 12:48:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat Cool thanks for the ideas Mike. >?covid lockdown of the facility, my mom was not allowed entry so was unable to properly monitor supplies or laundry etc? Doh! Sorry to hear, hope it opens again soon. Out here the isolation of the nursing home patients has no clear end in sight. >?There are privacy issues (HIPAA as well as colloquial "privacy") but it could be a powerful tool to make remote presence more visceral/embodied/immersive than the current camera+mic setup we're using? Ja, your idea (I think) is to use a simulated Zoom meeting where the avatar is animated but looks like a 3D meat-world person? Or did I misunderstand what you have in mind? Computer graphics hipsters, how close are we to having animation good enough to pass for a person on a Zoom window? Privacy: ja I don?t know what to do there. Good point. >?The barrier to listen-bot (which may well be alexa in a teddy ruxpin) is that nobody will talk to it any more than they've ever talked to an inanimate object? I disagree sir. Plenty of us poured out our hearts to Eliza back in the 70s, knowing full well we were talking to ourselves. This would be better than Eliza in a way: it could call on encyclopedic knowledge of the world thru the internet and it could remember stuff we told it last time. >?I think the solution is that the device must be conversational? Ja. A critical design feature is that it would remember what we told it last time. Then we start telling the same story a second time, it could decide to listen again or have it ask questions, knowing where the discussion will go. >?This is where I know the GPT-n and some text to speach is probably "good enough" for a viable product. However, if this project is an excuse to get started, the "getting to know you" bot could build a knowledgebase... and the telepresence operator interface could navigate those topics... imagine if the next caregiver can enter a room and continue conversation where the last caregiver left (with AI providing fill-in conversation in the interim) A lot to digest in that one paragraph. Consider the terabytes of inane ?conversation? available on teen chat sites. Perhaps we could set up something that would somehow mine and catalog the terabytes of inane conversation on ExI and MENSA, then feed that back to the user. That sounds kinda cool, and certainly a good reason to archive our inane conversations here: a data source for future chatbots. Lotsa good stuff in your post Mike, thanks. I am the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz: I would get on this and figure it out if I only had a brain. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 21:10:33 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 15:10:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: For nursing home patients, you would give them a questionnaire and find out their interests outside the home (you might want to stay away from things they can no longer do: cooking, gardening). Then scan the web for news of that sort and have the bot bring it up conversationally. For some people that would contain a lot of information to discuss. The bot could search during conversations for reactions in Facebook ,Twitter etc. - polls, maybe, telling what people think. Of course you would load it with family info and pictures so they could look at their family anytime they wanted. That's a good start, I think. bill w On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 2:50 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat > > > > > > *Cool thanks for the ideas Mike.* > > > > *>?*covid lockdown of the facility, my mom was not allowed entry so was > unable to properly monitor supplies or laundry etc? > > > > Doh! Sorry to hear, hope it opens again soon. Out here the isolation of > the nursing home patients has no clear end in sight. > > > > >?There are privacy issues (HIPAA as well as colloquial "privacy") but it > could be a powerful tool to make remote presence more > visceral/embodied/immersive than the current camera+mic setup we're using? > > > > Ja, your idea (I think) is to use a simulated Zoom meeting where the > avatar is animated but looks like a 3D meat-world person? Or did I > misunderstand what you have in mind? > > > > Computer graphics hipsters, how close are we to having animation good > enough to pass for a person on a Zoom window? > > > > Privacy: ja I don?t know what to do there. Good point. > > > > > > >?The barrier to listen-bot (which may well be alexa in a teddy ruxpin) is > that nobody will talk to it any more than they've ever talked to an > inanimate object? > > > > I disagree sir. Plenty of us poured out our hearts to Eliza back in the > 70s, knowing full well we were talking to ourselves. This would be better > than Eliza in a way: it could call on encyclopedic knowledge of the world > thru the internet and it could remember stuff we told it last time. > > > > >?I think the solution is that the device must be conversational? > > > > Ja. A critical design feature is that it would remember what we told it > last time. Then we start telling the same story a second time, it could > decide to listen again or have it ask questions, knowing where the > discussion will go. > > > > >?This is where I know the GPT-n and some text to speach is probably "good > enough" for a viable product. However, if this project is an excuse to > get started, the "getting to know you" bot could build a knowledgebase... > and the telepresence operator interface could navigate those topics... > imagine if the next caregiver can enter a room and continue conversation > where the last caregiver left (with AI providing fill-in conversation in > the interim) > > > > A lot to digest in that one paragraph. Consider the terabytes of inane > ?conversation? available on teen chat sites. Perhaps we could set up > something that would somehow mine and catalog the terabytes of inane > conversation on ExI and MENSA, then feed that back to the user. That > sounds kinda cool, and certainly a good reason to archive our inane > conversations here: a data source for future chatbots. > > > > Lotsa good stuff in your post Mike, thanks. I am the scarecrow from > Wizard of Oz: I would get on this and figure it out if I only had a brain. > > > > 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 Jan 1 21:37:34 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 15:37:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] listen bot Message-ID: You could fill the bot with stories the parents/grandkids etc. recorded. This will enable the elderly to show visitors their kid and grandkids and what they did without having to rely on memory. Tons of stuff could be entered here. The bot will have, of course, a screen to match stills and videos with the pictures. It will be a phone as well so the relatives could add new stories at will, such as tonight's football game with the grandon as the star. The problem will not be the content. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 21:57:53 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 21:57:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: References: <01b001d6e05a$04a97060$0dfc5120$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 6:09 PM Angel Z. Lopez via extropy-chat wrote: > Everything has a logical explanation. Has anyone offered illogical explanations? This reminds me of TV shows and films where there's a logical explanation for something -- the logical explanation being the ghost or alien or whatnot is real and not imaginary -- and what the character denying means is they want a conventional or mundane explanation -- that is, one involving only things conventionally accepted or part of the worldview now. (Don't get me wrong here. I'm no believer in psi, but I think there's a difference between a logical explanation and one based on, say, current science or current accepted (by whom?) knowledge. I would distinguish, too, between logical possibilities, nomological ones, and contingent ones. For instance, it's logically possible that there could be ghosts. It seems nomologically impossible or very improbable though. It's also logically possible that Trump won the 2020 election. It's also nomologically possible (his winning wouldn't violate any physical laws), but it's contingently impossible or very unlikely.) One thing I found interesting about psi is that people investigating it often tend to adopt something like a lab science approach. That's not true of many other paranormal stuff. In fact, it's like paranormal stuff goes in different epistemic buckets. Psi investigators tend to take a scientific approach -- whether they've found anything is another matter. (Most scientific findings don't find anything noteworthy and even ones that do can be overturned. Think of how much of the science of a hundred years ago is still around now.) Astrology, cryptids, and UFOs tend to take other approaches. Astrology seems to have almost no one studying it scientifically (not that there's anything to find aside from maybe stuff of psychological or sociological interest), but takes a more commercial approach: bilking people who don't think critically about it. Cryptids and UFOs tend to be just collecting reports and sharing stories for the most part. Perhaps there's a tiny amount of scientific type controls on it, but it's nothing compared to psi. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jan 1 22:56:31 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 22:56:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 01/01/2021 16:05, John Grigg wrote: > But then I believe in an afterlife of some sort I've never really understood this. Could you explain, please, what that term 'afterlife' actually means? It seems like an oxymoron to me. If you can be alive after you're dead, then you never actually died, surely? But we know people die, so... -- Ben Zaiboc From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 23:24:49 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 17:24:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Paranormal activity? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A friend of mine died not long ago and I talked with his brother. He was extremely upset because his brother chose cremation. He belonged to a church that believed that your Earthly body was resurrected, and his brother no longer had an Earthly body. I don't know where the idea of 'soul' originated (should look that up), but it is supposedly a metaphysical 'thing' - in the body but not of it. A spirit. That is what survives you, they say. There are even pictures of people taken at the moment of death that believers say shows a ghostlike thing leaving the body. KIrlian photography or something like that. Being a materialist, I look upon these things with some alarm and some amusement. These people can be very dangerous, as can extremists of any kind. bill w On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 4:58 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 01/01/2021 16:05, John Grigg wrote: > > But then I believe in an afterlife of some sort > > I've never really understood this. Could you explain, please, what that > term 'afterlife' actually means? It seems like an oxymoron to me. If you > can be alive after you're dead, then you never actually died, surely? > But we know people die, so... > > -- > 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 msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 1 23:33:35 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 18:33:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 3:50 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Ja, your idea (I think) is to use a simulated Zoom meeting where the > avatar is animated but looks like a 3D meat-world person? Or did I > misunderstand what you have in mind? > I actually think a Tweekie (you remember 80's Buck Rogers?) or BB8 (recent Star Wars) would be task-specific hardware. For my preference, a Wall-E with a Nintendo Switch for a chest would be sufficiently mobile to automatically get itself into viewing position and present whatever image. I wanted more of a pet style companion or wizard's familiar. I can understand needing a heavier duty machine to provide lifting assistance for mobility. The problem with large humanoid robots is that they have gorilla-strength and less understanding. Even if they're engineered to be safer than the auto-autos, perception that T-1000 will kill us all is difficult to overcome. > Computer graphics hipsters, how close are we to having animation good > enough to pass for a person on a Zoom window? > You clearly don't play enough xbox/playstation/computer games. > >?The barrier to listen-bot (which may well be alexa in a teddy ruxpin) is > that nobody will talk to it any more than they've ever talked to an > inanimate object? > > I disagree sir. Plenty of us poured out our hearts to Eliza back in the > 70s, knowing full well we were talking to ourselves. This would be better > than Eliza in a way: it could call on encyclopedic knowledge of the world > thru the internet and it could remember stuff we told it last time. > Who is "us"? You and I are pretty happy with endless streams of text. "Normal" people are more fickle. Even Eliza bored me fairly quickly. That's why I like the human+AI hybrid... so people can nudge the algorithm when necessary and the AI can cover for us when we're inattentive. > >?I think the solution is that the device must be conversational? > > Ja. A critical design feature is that it would remember what we told it > last time. Then we start telling the same story a second time, it could > decide to listen again or have it ask questions, knowing where the > discussion will go. > This is my main focus for AI: to distill the flood of detail into essential facts. Unlike the unintelligible weights of a neural net, I'm hoping to have higher lever level abstractions "fact trees" that humans can manipulate (in VR) - or think of it like tieing a specific fly to fish in the unfathomably deep knowledge lake, the fish that you reel-in (real-in?) is the answer/reply to the question/query represented by that specific fly. (Wordplay is fun, innit?) > >?This is where I know the GPT-n and some text to speach is probably "good > enough" for a viable product. However, if this project is an excuse to > get started, the "getting to know you" bot could build a knowledgebase... > and the telepresence operator interface could navigate those topics... > imagine if the next caregiver can enter a room and continue conversation > where the last caregiver left (with AI providing fill-in conversation in > the interim) > > A lot to digest in that one paragraph. Consider the terabytes of inane > ?conversation? available on teen chat sites. Perhaps we could set up > something that would somehow mine and catalog the terabytes of inane > conversation on ExI and MENSA, then feed that back to the user. That > sounds kinda cool, and certainly a good reason to archive our inane > conversations here: a data source for future chatbots. > Terabytes isn't as much as it used to be. It gets smaller every day. > Lotsa good stuff in your post Mike, thanks. I am the scarecrow from > Wizard of Oz: I would get on this and figure it out if I only had a brain. > How many rockets did you build entirely by yourself? I think this project plan requires a team right from the start. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 02:59:12 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 10:59:12 +0800 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I think what would be good about a listen-bot, is that the conversations could be recorded, and ultimately turned into a biography of the person. I've always admired people and organizations who interview the elderly and write down their life stories. I hate the idea that the individual experiences of a person are forever lost. A great SNL skit about the Alexa "Silver..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk John On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 7:35 AM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 3:50 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Ja, your idea (I think) is to use a simulated Zoom meeting where the >> avatar is animated but looks like a 3D meat-world person? Or did I >> misunderstand what you have in mind? >> > I actually think a Tweekie (you remember 80's Buck Rogers?) or BB8 (recent > Star Wars) would be task-specific hardware. For my preference, a Wall-E > with a Nintendo Switch for a chest would be sufficiently mobile to > automatically get itself into viewing position and present whatever image. > > > I wanted more of a pet style companion or wizard's familiar. I can > understand needing a heavier duty machine to provide lifting assistance for > mobility. The problem with large humanoid robots is that they have > gorilla-strength and less understanding. Even if they're engineered to be > safer than the auto-autos, perception that T-1000 will kill us all is > difficult to overcome. > >> Computer graphics hipsters, how close are we to having animation good >> enough to pass for a person on a Zoom window? >> > You clearly don't play enough xbox/playstation/computer games. > >> >?The barrier to listen-bot (which may well be alexa in a teddy ruxpin) >> is that nobody will talk to it any more than they've ever talked to an >> inanimate object? >> >> I disagree sir. Plenty of us poured out our hearts to Eliza back in the >> 70s, knowing full well we were talking to ourselves. This would be better >> than Eliza in a way: it could call on encyclopedic knowledge of the world >> thru the internet and it could remember stuff we told it last time. >> > Who is "us"? You and I are pretty happy with endless streams of text. > "Normal" people are more fickle. Even Eliza bored me fairly quickly. > That's why I like the human+AI hybrid... so people can nudge the algorithm > when necessary and the AI can cover for us when we're inattentive. > >> >?I think the solution is that the device must be conversational? >> >> Ja. A critical design feature is that it would remember what we told it >> last time. Then we start telling the same story a second time, it could >> decide to listen again or have it ask questions, knowing where the >> discussion will go. >> > This is my main focus for AI: to distill the flood of detail into > essential facts. Unlike the unintelligible weights of a neural net, I'm > hoping to have higher lever level abstractions "fact trees" that humans can > manipulate (in VR) - or think of it like tieing a specific fly to fish in > the unfathomably deep knowledge lake, the fish that you reel-in (real-in?) > is the answer/reply to the question/query represented by that specific > fly. (Wordplay is fun, innit?) > >> >?This is where I know the GPT-n and some text to speach is probably >> "good enough" for a viable product. However, if this project is an excuse >> to get started, the "getting to know you" bot could build a >> knowledgebase... and the telepresence operator interface could navigate >> those topics... imagine if the next caregiver can enter a room and continue >> conversation where the last caregiver left (with AI providing fill-in >> conversation in the interim) >> >> A lot to digest in that one paragraph. Consider the terabytes of inane >> ?conversation? available on teen chat sites. Perhaps we could set up >> something that would somehow mine and catalog the terabytes of inane >> conversation on ExI and MENSA, then feed that back to the user. That >> sounds kinda cool, and certainly a good reason to archive our inane >> conversations here: a data source for future chatbots. >> > Terabytes isn't as much as it used to be. It gets smaller every day. > >> Lotsa good stuff in your post Mike, thanks. I am the scarecrow from >> Wizard of Oz: I would get on this and figure it out if I only had a brain. >> > How many rockets did you build entirely by yourself? I think this project > plan requires a team right from the start. > >> _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 2 04:50:23 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 20:50:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <013801d6e0c2$c892a7e0$59b7f7a0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of John Grigg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi >?I think what would be good about a listen-bot, is that the conversations could be recorded, and ultimately turned into a biography of the person. I've always admired people and organizations who interview the elderly and write down their life stories. I hate the idea that the individual experiences of a person are forever lost. A great SNL skit about the Alexa "Silver..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk John Excellent thanks. John I thought of you today. As I was pondering how to proceed with this notion, I was struck by the irony that the ExI crowd would be the ones attempting such a thing. Look us, my friends. We are not exactly the most warm cuddly sorts. Then I realized, Well, Johnny Grigg is. But the rest of us, not so much really. We are thinky types, not huggy types. Fun aside: we had an ExI conference at Berkeley about 20 yrs ago, buncha guys came from all over. We had a huge blowout party at my house. My bride marveled at how normal I am compared to my own online friends. So all these huge Extro-biggies showed up: Anders, Eliezer, Greg Burch, Max, Robert Bradbury, I was in awe of myself just for being in their presence. She doesn?t know how godlike any of these guys are, and to this day she remembers only one of the people there. That person is? John Grigg. She thinks he is the nicest guy of all of us. Our own Griggmeister! So now I hafta sleep with one eye open. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 07:01:58 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 15:01:58 +0800 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: <013801d6e0c2$c892a7e0$59b7f7a0$@rainier66.com> References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> <013801d6e0c2$c892a7e0$59b7f7a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike wrote: "Excellent thanks. John I thought of you today. As I was pondering how to proceed with this notion, I was struck by the irony that the ExI crowd would be the ones attempting such a thing. Look us, my friends. We are not exactly the most warm cuddly sorts. Then I realized, Well, Johnny Grigg is. But the rest of us, not so much really. We are thinky types, not huggy types. Fun aside: we had an ExI conference at Berkeley about 20 yrs ago, buncha guys came from all over. We had a huge blowout party at my house. My bride marveled at how normal I am compared to my own online friends. So all these huge Extro-biggies showed up: Anders, Eliezer, Greg Burch, Max, Robert Bradbury, I was in awe of myself just for being in their presence. She doesn?t know how godlike any of these guys are, and to this day she remembers only one of the people there. That person is? John Grigg. She thinks he is the nicest guy of all of us. Our own Griggmeister! So now I hafta sleep with one eye open." Spike, you made me blush with your kind words. As Mark Twain said, "I can live for two months on a good compliment!" You give me a great deal to live up to... I would say you are deeply blessed with such a great bride, and that at the same time, she is very fortunate to have you. And the two of you created an exceptional human being! I recall fondly my trip to California for the Extropian Institute Conference, and how I felt honored to be among such gifted people. I was touched by the hospitality you and your wife showed me. And I still have the t-shirt I was given, which I rarely wear, so it lasts. On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 12:52 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *John Grigg via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi > > > > >?I think what would be good about a listen-bot, is that the conversations > could be recorded, and ultimately turned into a biography of the person. > I've always admired people and organizations who interview the elderly and > write down their life stories. I hate the idea that the individual > experiences of a person are forever lost. > > > > A great SNL skit about the Alexa "Silver..." > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk > > > > John > > > > > > > > Excellent thanks. John I thought of you today. As I was pondering how to > proceed with this notion, I was struck by the irony that the ExI crowd > would be the ones attempting such a thing. Look us, my friends. We are > not exactly the most warm cuddly sorts. Then I realized, Well, Johnny > Grigg is. But the rest of us, not so much really. We are thinky types, > not huggy types. > > > > Fun aside: we had an ExI conference at Berkeley about 20 yrs ago, buncha > guys came from all over. We had a huge blowout party at my house. My > bride marveled at how normal I am compared to my own online friends. So > all these huge Extro-biggies showed up: Anders, Eliezer, Greg Burch, Max, > Robert Bradbury, I was in awe of myself just for being in their presence. > She doesn?t know how godlike any of these guys are, and to this day she > remembers only one of the people there. That person is? > > > > John Grigg. She thinks he is the nicest guy of all of us. Our own > Griggmeister! So now I hafta sleep with one eye open. > > > > 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 ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 08:14:43 2021 From: ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com (ilsa) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 00:14:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> <013801d6e0c2$c892a7e0$59b7f7a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: When Greg saw how the list didn't comprehend what I meant from my writing, John wrote to Me. What else is there to say the story would just be my perception but the end result is that it allowed me to feel that if I wanted to say something I could send it to John first and at the same time I had the pleasure of reading all of your interesting threads. I retain my identity as no one special. During my treatment for cancer John made some sort of contact with me almost daily. Sorry John I don't mean to be public display how few of us have a working brain and a working heart? Smile, ilsa On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 11:01 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Spike wrote: > > "Excellent thanks. John I thought of you today. As I was pondering how > to proceed with this notion, I was struck by the irony that the ExI crowd > would be the ones attempting such a thing. Look us, my friends. We are > not exactly the most warm cuddly sorts. Then I realized, Well, Johnny > Grigg is. But the rest of us, not so much really. We are thinky types, > not huggy types. > > > > Fun aside: we had an ExI conference at Berkeley about 20 yrs ago, buncha > guys came from all over. We had a huge blowout party at my house. My > bride marveled at how normal I am compared to my own online friends. So > all these huge Extro-biggies showed up: Anders, Eliezer, Greg Burch, Max, > Robert Bradbury, I was in awe of myself just for being in their presence. > She doesn?t know how godlike any of these guys are, and to this day she > remembers only one of the people there. That person is? > > > > John Grigg. She thinks he is the nicest guy of all of us. Our own > Griggmeister! So now I hafta sleep with one eye open." > > > Spike, you made me blush with your kind words. As Mark Twain said, "I can > live for two months on a good compliment!" You give me a great deal to live > up to... I would say you are deeply blessed with such a great bride, and > that at the same time, she is very fortunate to have you. And the two of > you created an exceptional human being! > > I recall fondly my trip to California for the Extropian Institute > Conference, and how I felt honored to be among such gifted people. I was > touched by the hospitality you and your wife showed me. And I still have > the t-shirt I was given, which I rarely wear, so it lasts. > > On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 12:52 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *?*> *On Behalf Of *John Grigg via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi >> >> >> >> >?I think what would be good about a listen-bot, is that the >> conversations could be recorded, and ultimately turned into a biography of >> the person. I've always admired people and organizations who interview the >> elderly and write down their life stories. I hate the idea that the >> individual experiences of a person are forever lost. >> >> >> >> A great SNL skit about the Alexa "Silver..." >> >> >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk >> >> >> >> John >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Excellent thanks. John I thought of you today. As I was pondering how >> to proceed with this notion, I was struck by the irony that the ExI crowd >> would be the ones attempting such a thing. Look us, my friends. We are >> not exactly the most warm cuddly sorts. Then I realized, Well, Johnny >> Grigg is. But the rest of us, not so much really. We are thinky types, >> not huggy types. >> >> >> >> Fun aside: we had an ExI conference at Berkeley about 20 yrs ago, buncha >> guys came from all over. We had a huge blowout party at my house. My >> bride marveled at how normal I am compared to my own online friends. So >> all these huge Extro-biggies showed up: Anders, Eliezer, Greg Burch, Max, >> Robert Bradbury, I was in awe of myself just for being in their presence. >> She doesn?t know how godlike any of these guys are, and to this day she >> remembers only one of the people there. That person is? >> >> >> >> John Grigg. She thinks he is the nicest guy of all of us. Our own >> Griggmeister! So now I hafta sleep with one eye open. >> >> >> >> 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 rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 10:52:59 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 05:52:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] I caught the covid In-Reply-To: <00a101d6de47$4031fb30$c095f190$@rainier66.com> References: <004101d6da82$e73dd0c0$b5b97240$@rainier66.com> <2CF4CF12-6CD6-4C34-9750-5DAFDC89330B@alumni.virginia.edu> <003b01d6dad6$279c75b0$76d56110$@rainier66.com> <00a101d6de47$4031fb30$c095f190$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 8:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > There are over 100 kiloproles being poked per day with vaccines. > ### The term of art for this situation is "clusterfuck". Over 20 million doses have been delivered but only 2 million administered. So ridiculous. Government at its best. Another good reason, along with lockdowns and mask mandates, to abolish local, state and federal health departments and enjoin government employees from interference in citizens' health-related activities. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 2 13:48:55 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 05:48:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] I caught the covid In-Reply-To: References: <004101d6da82$e73dd0c0$b5b97240$@rainier66.com> <2CF4CF12-6CD6-4C34-9750-5DAFDC89330B@alumni.virginia.edu> <003b01d6dad6$279c75b0$76d56110$@rainier66.com> <00a101d6de47$4031fb30$c095f190$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003201d6e10e$04382b30$0ca88190$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] I caught the covid On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 8:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: There are over 100 kiloproles being poked per day with vaccines. ### The term of art for this situation is "clusterfuck". Over 20 million doses have been delivered but only 2 million administered. So ridiculous. Government at its best. Another good reason, along with lockdowns and mask mandates, to abolish local, state and federal health departments and enjoin government employees from interference in citizens' health-related activities. Rafal WOWsers, thanks for that Rafal. I had no idea. I can see why this went wrong: I heard hospitals were being held liable for giving the vaccines out of turn to the wrong people. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 14:50:23 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 14:50:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] I caught the covid In-Reply-To: <003201d6e10e$04382b30$0ca88190$@rainier66.com> References: <004101d6da82$e73dd0c0$b5b97240$@rainier66.com> <2CF4CF12-6CD6-4C34-9750-5DAFDC89330B@alumni.virginia.edu> <003b01d6dad6$279c75b0$76d56110$@rainier66.com> <00a101d6de47$4031fb30$c095f190$@rainier66.com> <003201d6e10e$04382b30$0ca88190$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 2 Jan 2021 at 13:51, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > WOWsers, thanks for that Rafal. I had no idea. I can see why this went wrong: I heard hospitals were being held liable for giving the vaccines out of turn to the wrong people. > > spike > _______________________________________________ For tracking vaccine distribution see: It seems that the US Federal gov distributes the vaccine and each state organises their own injection system. The US numbers don't appear to be much better or worse than most other countries so far- early days yet. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 2 15:05:47 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 07:05:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] interesting chart Message-ID: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> This chart shows who is doing what: Note that second to last column which is number of launches planned for that year vs the number which happened. Covid slowed down ULA to less than half its planned launches, but Musk somehow managed to get even more of his birds off the ground in 2020 than planned, and had more launches than all his competitors combined. How could ya not admire that accomplishment? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 115024 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 15:11:24 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 09:11:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: <013801d6e0c2$c892a7e0$59b7f7a0$@rainier66.com> References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> <013801d6e0c2$c892a7e0$59b7f7a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: We are thinky types, not huggy types spike I noticed it early in life: when we arrived at my relatives' house for Xmas there were A frame hugs: you stand about two feet apart, lean forward, give a quick two pats on the back. No actual contact except for maybe a kiss on the cheek. The whole family, women, men.... I married a woman whose whole family was like that except for one niece, who would stick her treasures right into your chest. No A frame for her. The problem with being cold is that people think you don't have any emotions. I have plenty of them. Too much at times. But hugging is for sex and please keep your distance. I had one friend whose personal distance was about eight inches and I was constantly backing away from him. Does having adequate personal space go along with being cold? bill w On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 10:52 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *John Grigg via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi > > > > >?I think what would be good about a listen-bot, is that the conversations > could be recorded, and ultimately turned into a biography of the person. > I've always admired people and organizations who interview the elderly and > write down their life stories. I hate the idea that the individual > experiences of a person are forever lost. > > > > A great SNL skit about the Alexa "Silver..." > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk > > > > John > > > > > > > > Excellent thanks. John I thought of you today. As I was pondering how to > proceed with this notion, I was struck by the irony that the ExI crowd > would be the ones attempting such a thing. Look us, my friends. We are > not exactly the most warm cuddly sorts. Then I realized, Well, Johnny > Grigg is. But the rest of us, not so much really. We are thinky types, > not huggy types. > > > > Fun aside: we had an ExI conference at Berkeley about 20 yrs ago, buncha > guys came from all over. We had a huge blowout party at my house. My > bride marveled at how normal I am compared to my own online friends. So > all these huge Extro-biggies showed up: Anders, Eliezer, Greg Burch, Max, > Robert Bradbury, I was in awe of myself just for being in their presence. > She doesn?t know how godlike any of these guys are, and to this day she > remembers only one of the people there. That person is? > > > > John Grigg. She thinks he is the nicest guy of all of us. Our own > Griggmeister! So now I hafta sleep with one eye open. > > > > 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 Jan 2 15:13:13 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 09:13:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] interesting chart In-Reply-To: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> References: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: So just what are those things going into orbit? They can't all be spy satellites. Communications. What else? bill w On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 9:07 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > This chart shows who is doing what: > > > > > > Note that second to last column which is number of launches planned for > that year vs the number which happened. Covid slowed down ULA to less than > half its planned launches, but Musk somehow managed to get even more of his > birds off the ground in 2020 than planned, and had more launches than all > his competitors combined. How could ya not admire that accomplishment? > > > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 115024 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 2 15:30:18 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 07:30:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi In-Reply-To: References: <000d01d6df8e$f9d00d00$ed702700$@rainier66.com> <003001d6e064$262db750$728925f0$@rainier66.com> <009801d6e07f$7b372bd0$71a58370$@rainier66.com> <013801d6e0c2$c892a7e0$59b7f7a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007101d6e11c$2d5caaf0$881600d0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] elon says this isn't cgi >>?We are thinky types, not huggy types spike >?I noticed it early in life: when we arrived at my relatives' house for Xmas there were A frame hugs: you stand about two feet apart, lean forward, give a quick two pats on the back. ? Does having adequate personal space go along with being cold? bill w I have been to social gatherings of the thinky types: ExI, Foresight Institute, Mensa, Futurist this and that, the math crowd, Science Olympiad parents, Singularity Institute, the Nerdvana Geekfest at Stanford on 1 April 2000 (oh what a time that was.) Those kinds of social gatherings are my style. I have been to a few? what would you call them? normal parties? Every time I hafta go to a normal party, I am so squicked! People there are so touchy feely, and that whole air kiss on the cheek business, eeewwwww run away! I want to flee! Zoom has been such a gift: now I can go to normal parties without anyone trying to touch me. Granted I don?t actually want to go to normal parties, but I can without people touching me. I can still make proles laugh over the phone. Of course it is derisive laughter, but hey, so long as they laugh. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 2 15:40:20 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 07:40:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] interesting chart In-Reply-To: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> References: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007801d6e11d$9483dfe0$bd8b9fa0$@rainier66.com> I forgot to include the source for that chart I posted earlier. Here ya go: https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/the-stat e-of-the-global-rocket-industry-in-the-21st-century/ Lotsa goodies in that article, such as this talkative chart: spike From: spike at rainier66.com Sent: Saturday, January 2, 2021 7:06 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: interesting chart This chart shows who is doing what: . spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 65391 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 20:01:29 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 12:01:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] interesting chart In-Reply-To: References: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: n Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 7:22 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > So just what are those things going into orbit? They can't all be spy > satellites. Communications. What else? bill w > Comms, observation, tech validation, and science are the four big categories, from what I've seen. The latter two include missions to set up new uses, such as lunar resource extraction and on-orbit servicing (a secondary market supporting the others). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 21:30:17 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 15:30:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] interesting chart In-Reply-To: References: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: How many do you reckon are up there to kill other satellites should the time come? bill w On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 2:03 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > n Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 7:22 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> So just what are those things going into orbit? They can't all be spy >> satellites. Communications. What else? bill w >> > > Comms, observation, tech validation, and science are the four big > categories, from what I've seen. The latter two include missions to set up > new uses, such as lunar resource extraction and on-orbit servicing (a > secondary market supporting the others). > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 2 22:01:16 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 22:01:16 +0000 Subject: [ExI] interesting chart In-Reply-To: References: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 2 Jan 2021 at 21:32, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > How many do you reckon are up there to kill other satellites should the time come? bill w > > _______________________________________________ Most military satellites are in LEO (low-earth orbit) and can be destroyed with ground missiles. One problem though is the creation of many thousands of pieces of debris. These clouds of debris could cause a chain reaction of satellite destruction and end up destroying all the satellites in LEO, not just enemy satellites. People do worry about LEO becoming unusable. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 22:16:19 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 14:16:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] interesting chart In-Reply-To: References: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 1:31 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > How many do you reckon are up there to kill other satellites should the > time come? bill w > Zero at this time, according to sources I should not elaborate on, on this list. That may change. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 2 22:53:29 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 16:53:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] interesting chart In-Reply-To: References: <005b01d6e118$c0fa4460$42eecd20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: OK, thanks Adrian bill w On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 4:18 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 1:31 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> How many do you reckon are up there to kill other satellites should the >> time come? bill w >> > > Zero at this time, according to sources I should not elaborate on, on this > list. That may change. > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 3 03:25:56 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 19:25:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard Message-ID: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> I have friends who celebrated their 72nd anniversary. 2020 was a bad year for him, not because of covid but because he took a fall, broke a piece off his pelvis. They doped him up to manage the pain and that healed but he took another fall, splatted face first, broke his sternum and two ribs (oooowwww damn.) That healed OK but he took a third fall. This time he didn?t break anything: he landed in the shrubbery. Hmmmm, OK, when you really just hafta fall, arrange to fall into the bushes. Then it occurred to me: we have airbags in our Detroits, and the package isn?t that big or heavy. Perhaps we could rig up a special coat and trousers with airbags in there: a prole starts to take a dive, sensors such as angular accelerometers recognize something is up and on the way down, whooomp he makes a soft (even if undignified) landing. I would really like to see this couple make it to their 75th. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 04:16:18 2021 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 23:16:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: When you say 'prole', would you not like the same protections to apply to you as well? Might you not fall soon too? I get the prole term for the general proletariat but I don't get it in this situation. Couldn't that happen to anyone? And you as well? On Sat, Jan 2, 2021, 10:27 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > I have friends who celebrated their 72nd anniversary. 2020 was a bad > year for him, not because of covid but because he took a fall, broke a > piece off his pelvis. They doped him up to manage the pain and that healed > but he took another fall, splatted face first, broke his sternum and two > ribs (oooowwww damn.) That healed OK but he took a third fall. This time > he didn?t break anything: he landed in the shrubbery. > > > > Hmmmm, OK, when you really just hafta fall, arrange to fall into the > bushes. > > > > Then it occurred to me: we have airbags in our Detroits, and the package > isn?t that big or heavy. Perhaps we could rig up a special coat and > trousers with airbags in there: a prole starts to take a dive, sensors such > as angular accelerometers recognize something is up and on the way down, > whooomp he makes a soft (even if undignified) landing. I would really like > to see this couple make it to their 75th. > > > > 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 Jan 3 04:40:15 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2021 20:40:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002701d6e18a$885b0050$991100f0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard >?When you say 'prole', would you not like the same protections to apply to you as well? Might you not fall soon too? Of course. >?I get the prole term for the general proletariat but I don't get it in this situation. Couldn't that happen to anyone? And you as well? Will I am a prole. A prole is anyone not currently employed by the government. This is the Orwellian term, not dismissive or pejorative in any way unless used by non-proles. I don?t think we have any non-proles on ExI as far as I know. I am a geezer too. So far it is a mild case fortunately. Regarding the airbag coat, I have nothing against elderly non-proles. We have a geezerly non-prole currently serving as POTUS and a still more geezerly one to be sworn in soon. I would favor protecting them as well. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 07:29:56 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 07:29:56 +0000 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <002701d6e18a$885b0050$991100f0$@rainier66.com> References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> <002701d6e18a$885b0050$991100f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 4:41 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > ?> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard > > >?When you say 'prole', would you not like the same protections to apply to you as well? Might you not fall soon too? > > Of course. > > >?I get the prole term for the general proletariat but I don't get it in this situation. Couldn't that happen to anyone? And you as well? > > Will I am a prole. A prole is anyone not currently employed by the government. As commonly used 'prole' is often used in a derogatory fashion. And it is not commonly used to mean 'anyone not currently employed by the government.' It's commonly used to mean a worker -- whomever said worker is employed by. > This is the Orwellian term, not dismissive or pejorative in any way unless used > by non-proles. I don?t think we have any non-proles on ExI as far as I know. If some here would Inner Party -- to continue with the analogy -- they might not let on, no? > I am a geezer too. So far it is a mild case fortunately. Well, no one's getting any younger... yet! > Regarding the airbag coat, I have nothing against elderly non-proles. We have a > geezerly non-prole currently serving as POTUS and a still more geezerly one to > be sworn in soon. I would favor protecting them as well. I think the deciding factor would be who needs it -- not class. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 10:09:50 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 10:09:50 +0000 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 3 Jan 2021 at 03:29, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Then it occurred to me: we have airbags in our Detroits, and the package isn?t that big or heavy. Perhaps we could rig up a special coat and trousers with airbags in there: a prole starts to take a dive, sensors such as angular accelerometers recognize something is up and on the way down, whooomp he makes a soft (even if undignified) landing. I would really like to see this couple make it to their 75th. > > spike > _______________________________________________ Yes, you can buy these nowadays. You know that you can get untethered airbag jackets for motorcycle and horse riders that use motion detection to inflate, so easy to also look after seniors as well. Search for 'airbags for seniors' to see a selection. One example: BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 3 14:56:44 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 06:56:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> <002701d6e18a$885b0050$991100f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004b01d6e1e0$a7b61420$f7223c60$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > >> Will I am a prole. A prole is anyone not currently employed by the government. >...As commonly used 'prole' is often used in a derogatory fashion... No worries Dan, I am here to rehabilitate that word. Note the origin in Orwell's classic. It was used in a derogatory fashion only by those who worked for the government, which was the point: after a time, political power replaced currency as currency. People without political power were irrelevant, regardless of how much wealth they owned, how educated they were, what skills they had. It was all about power. >... And it is not commonly used to mean 'anyone not currently employed by the government.' It's commonly used to mean a worker -- whomever said worker is employed by... Well there ya go, a worker equals prole. Worker equals good. So... prole equals good. No argument. >> I am a geezer too. So far it is a mild case fortunately. >...Well, no one's getting any younger... yet! I am working that. >...I think the deciding factor would be who needs it -- not class. Regards, Dan Ja Dan, that is a subtlety I fear is mostly lost on American readers of Orwell. A prole doesn't mean lower class, it means those without political power. That was the warning Orwell was trying to communicate. The outer circle non-proles had some power but little wealth. They had access to some consumer goods the proles couldn't have, even if the proles were wealthy. I see it as a backhanded commentary on communist society, where the party officials had western goods that they somehow attained, even if they didn't have much money. It was all about political power, not money. Political power could get things that money couldn't buy. In the USA, we are getting more and more toward money being used to buy political power. We are approaching a world in which we lose the things that political power cannot buy. We have collectively missed Orwell's lesson. Anyone here who has not read Nineteen Eighty Four, please stop what you are doing and read it. Understand what he is saying there. It is a message for our times. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 3 14:58:20 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 06:58:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004c01d6e1e0$e082ca00$a1885e00$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat >....Yes, you can buy these nowadays. You know that you can get untethered airbag jackets for motorcycle and horse riders that use motion detection to inflate, so easy to also look after seniors as well. Search for 'airbags for seniors' to see a selection. One example: BillK _______________________________________________ COOL! Sheesh I shoulda looked around before I posted the question. Thanks BillK. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 3 16:36:00 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 08:36:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <004c01d6e1e0$e082ca00$a1885e00$@rainier66.com> References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> <004c01d6e1e0$e082ca00$a1885e00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006301d6e1ee$85d911f0$918b35d0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: spike at rainier66.com Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2021 6:58 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] geezer guard -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat >....Yes, you can buy these nowadays... One example: BillK _______________________________________________ COOL! Sheesh I shoulda looked around before I posted the question. Thanks BillK. spike Ok I viewed the video BillK. This gets us most of the way there. The most dangerous time for seniors is in the winter when the sidewalks are icy. In those times an airbag overcoat would work. It can have the bags pop up from below, we could even make a cap device with airbags to cushion the head in a fall. The femoral neck is a particularly vulnerable place. As the video shows, the natural reaction is to extend the knee to cushion a fall, but that has the knee striking first, which overstresses the femoral neck. If that breaks in an elderly person, they are wheelchair jockeys for a long time. Without exercise from walking, the problem snowballs. If we had airbag boots which would inflate upwards, operated by Bluetooth command from accelerometers at the shoulders, that could pad the knees enough to protect the femoral neck. Aside: since we have been talking about rockets landing feet first and all that cool stuff, the advances in accelerometers in the past 15 yrs made all those sexy control systems possible. They are small, fast, cheap, reliable, oh they get us control freaks all turned on (in a good way (we have a secret website for control system porno (lots of video of Musk's thrust vector control actuators dancing about steering that rocket right down to a pinpoint landing (oh that is really a major turn-on (those controllers put the X in SpaceX.)))) We still haven't found all the cool interesting applications those little solid-state rate gyros and three-axis accelerometers enabled. This looks like another good one. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 16:52:44 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 10:52:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <006301d6e1ee$85d911f0$918b35d0$@rainier66.com> References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> <004c01d6e1e0$e082ca00$a1885e00$@rainier66.com> <006301d6e1ee$85d911f0$918b35d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I'll bet the falling man didn't even use a walker. Or, like me, was given too high a dose of blood pressure medicine. bill w On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 10:37 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: spike at rainier66.com > Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2021 6:58 AM > To: 'ExI chat list' > Cc: spike at rainier66.com > Subject: RE: [ExI] geezer guard > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > BillK via extropy-chat > > > > >....Yes, you can buy these nowadays... > > > One example: > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > > COOL! > > Sheesh I shoulda looked around before I posted the question. > > Thanks BillK. > > spike > > > > > > Ok I viewed the video BillK. This gets us most of the way there. The > most dangerous time for seniors is in the winter when the sidewalks are > icy. In those times an airbag overcoat would work. It can have the bags > pop up from below, we could even make a cap device with airbags to cushion > the head in a fall. > > The femoral neck is a particularly vulnerable place. As the video shows, > the natural reaction is to extend the knee to cushion a fall, but that has > the knee striking first, which overstresses the femoral neck. If that > breaks in an elderly person, they are wheelchair jockeys for a long time. > Without exercise from walking, the problem snowballs. If we had airbag > boots which would inflate upwards, operated by Bluetooth command from > accelerometers at the shoulders, that could pad the knees enough to protect > the femoral neck. > > Aside: since we have been talking about rockets landing feet first and all > that cool stuff, the advances in accelerometers in the past 15 yrs made all > those sexy control systems possible. They are small, fast, cheap, > reliable, oh they get us control freaks all turned on (in a good way (we > have a secret website for control system porno (lots of video of Musk's > thrust vector control actuators dancing about steering that rocket right > down to a pinpoint landing (oh that is really a major turn-on (those > controllers put the X in SpaceX.)))) > > We still haven't found all the cool interesting applications those little > solid-state rate gyros and three-axis accelerometers enabled. This looks > like another good one. > > 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 Jan 3 17:02:11 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 09:02:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> <004c01d6e1e0$e082ca00$a1885e00$@rainier66.com> <006301d6e1ee$85d911f0$918b35d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007001d6e1f2$2e4dbc70$8ae93550$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard >?I'll bet the falling man didn't even use a walker. Or, like me, was given too high a dose of blood pressure medicine. bill w Ja, didn?t use a walker. Third fall convinced him he just hasta use one. At that age, any fall can be adios amigo. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 17:12:34 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 11:12:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <007001d6e1f2$2e4dbc70$8ae93550$@rainier66.com> References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> <004c01d6e1e0$e082ca00$a1885e00$@rainier66.com> <006301d6e1ee$85d911f0$918b35d0$@rainier66.com> <007001d6e1f2$2e4dbc70$8ae93550$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 11:03 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > Ja, didn?t use a walker. Third fall convinced him he just hasta use one. > At that age, any fall can be adios amigo. spike > Pride, right? Proverbs 16:18 It is a tossup among many things as to which of the errors we make on a daily basis is the worst. For a long time now I have been touting 'repeating one's mistakes' as the king of all avoidable errors. Still keeping to that. 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 Sun Jan 3 18:20:54 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 18:20:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems Message-ID: Something to get Spike even more excited! :) Elon Musk is thinking about an alternative landing system. The problem is that the lander legs have to be strong enough to support the weight of the lander section. And strength means extra weight. For the new Heavy Booster the weight is getting a bit excessive. So he is going to try and catch the lander (while it hovers) with the launch tower arm to support the weight. Needless to say, that's a bit tricky! BillK From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 19:36:15 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 14:36:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 1:23 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Something to get Spike even more excited! :) > > Elon Musk is thinking about an alternative landing system. The problem > is that the lander legs have to be strong enough to support the weight > of the lander section. And strength means extra weight. For the new > Heavy Booster the weight is getting a bit excessive. So he is going to > try and catch the lander (while it hovers) with the launch tower arm > to support the weight. Needless to say, that's a bit tricky! > Seems like landing in some kind of cradle would be a lot easier. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 19:47:35 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 14:47:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <006301d6e1ee$85d911f0$918b35d0$@rainier66.com> References: <001401d6e180$267e8e60$737bab20$@rainier66.com> <004c01d6e1e0$e082ca00$a1885e00$@rainier66.com> <006301d6e1ee$85d911f0$918b35d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 3, 2021, 11:37 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Ok I viewed the video BillK. This gets us most of the way there. The > most dangerous time for seniors is in the winter when the sidewalks are > icy. In those times an airbag overcoat would work. It can have the bags > pop up from below, we could even make a cap device with airbags to cushion > the head in a fall. > Surely an engineer (in any sector) is familiar with this adage: Are we solving the problem right? Are we solving the right problem? You could put your favorite geezer in an airbag equipped exoskeleton for a million dollars... or you could dispense $30 worth of salt. In this case an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of different prevention. Also, aren't there in-home fall risks that probably aren't going to be wearing the fancy geezer guard? Bathrooms are particularly dangerous with wet floors and porcelain or corners. If I have the option, I think abandoning the failing meatsuit for a dalek exosuit might be a good upgrade from the classic brain in a jar. I expect to be able to go for a virtual run in one of those robodogs, fly in a drone, or dance in an Asimo as needed (or all at the same time) > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 3 21:16:52 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 21:16:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 03/01/2021 17:12, Spike wrote: > We have collectively missed Orwell's lesson. Anyone here who has not read Nineteen Eighty Four, please stop what you are doing and read it. Understand what he is saying there. It is a message for our times. Yes, I second that. To my shame, I only read it relatively recently, and immediately realised I should have done so long ago. It should be part of everyone's education (together with in-depth explanations and discussions of its meaning and relevance to the real world, on several levels), imo. -- Ben Zaiboc From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 21:31:32 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 13:31:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> On Jan 3, 2021, at 11:49 AM, Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat wrote: > >> On Sun, Jan 3, 2021, 11:37 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> Ok I viewed the video BillK. This gets us most of the way there. The most dangerous time for seniors is in the winter when the sidewalks are icy. In those times an airbag overcoat would work. It can have the bags pop up from below, we could even make a cap device with airbags to cushion the head in a fall. > > > Surely an engineer (in any sector) is familiar with this adage: > > Are we solving the problem right? > Are we solving the right problem? > > You could put your favorite geezer in an airbag equipped exoskeleton for a million dollars... or you could dispense $30 worth of salt. In this case an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of different prevention. > > Also, aren't there in-home fall risks that probably aren't going to be wearing the fancy geezer guard? Bathrooms are particularly dangerous with wet floors and porcelain or corners. > > If I have the option, I think abandoning the failing meatsuit for a dalek exosuit might be a good upgrade from the classic brain in a jar. I expect to be able to go for a virtual run in one of those robodogs, fly in a drone, or dance in an Asimo as needed (or all at the same time) Well, in that vein ? solving the right problem ? a less radical approach is solving the problem of how humans get into a state where a minor fall can be life-threatening in the first place. A twenty year old falling the same way doesn?t end up dying within weeks of the fall. Why does an eighty year old? And how ? aside from uploading or special exoskeletons ? can the eighty year old be stopped from getting into that state? Part of it seems that from twenty on, most people simply go into decline ending up in a frail state where a simple fall can take them out. So, slowing, avoiding, or reversing that decline would seem to be something to think about before investing in exoskeletons. Then again, no reason not to pursue many strategies here. And I would out all my eggs in the most radical approach. After all, promises of AI, nanotechnology assemblers, cheap fusion, space migration, uploading, etc. have been made over decades and not kept. So better to try many strategies in case the seemingly obvious radical ones don?t pan out before you (rhetorical) have a life-ending hip fracture. (From your comment, it seems you already agree.) Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 3 21:39:28 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 21:39:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2ed48fa8-eaea-3435-baea-20bfd50b837b@zaiboc.net> On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 11:03 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > > Ja, didn?t use a walker.? Third fall convinced him he just hasta > use one.? At that age, any fall can be adios amigo.spike > Technology (airbags, accelerometers, walkers, exoskeletons, etc.) is all well and good, but I think it's important to not forget or neglect the biological side of what can be done to prevent or ameliorate these problems. I'm convinced, after seeing several people get old and start to fail, that maintaining your power-to-weight ratio is more and more important as you age. That, and bone density. This has really been driven home for me by seeing people unable to even get out of their chairs, not because of an injury, but simply because they are too weak to heave their own body mass upright. I've witnessed someone who fell over and didn't have the strength to get up again. Without help, they would have died, not from any injuries, but from not being able to move to get food and water. This really scares me, and I don't think it's inevitable. It's certainly motivated me to take steps to control my weight and maintain my muscle mass as I get older. Even now, with all our technology, Exercise and Diet remain the most effective things we can change to keep ourselves alive (at least for people who are basically healthy in the first place, i.e. not already dying of something else). It's not a popular message, I know, but you just have to suck it up, if you want to survive. And as long as you're not dead yet, it's never too late to start. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 21:48:28 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 16:48:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 3, 2021, 4:33 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Then again, no reason not to pursue many strategies here. And I would out > all my eggs in the most radical approach. After all, promises of AI, > nanotechnology assemblers, cheap fusion, space migration, uploading, etc. > have been made over decades and not kept. So better to try many strategies > in case the seemingly obvious radical ones don?t pan out before you > (rhetorical) have a life-ending hip fracture. (From your comment, it seems > you already agree.) > Absolutely. The prevailing wisdom is to do everything you can live long enough to live forever. I'm for slowing ageing. I'm for slowing life in general. Time enough for mindful actions could prevent falling down. Time enough to consider long term consequences could prevent downfalls. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 3 22:00:19 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 14:00:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2021 11:36 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: Dave Sill Subject: Re: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 1:23 PM BillK via extropy-chat > wrote: Something to get Spike even more excited! :) Elon Musk is thinking about an alternative landing system. The problem is that the lander legs have to be strong enough to support the weight of the lander section. And strength means extra weight. For the new Heavy Booster the weight is getting a bit excessive. So he is going to try and catch the lander (while it hovers) with the launch tower arm to support the weight. Needless to say, that's a bit tricky! >?Seems like landing in some kind of cradle would be a lot easier. -Dave I am running with Dave?s idea a bit. Imagine four sturdy towers with a mesh net made of nylon cord of about 3 cm diameter with cord centers at about 30 cm. The cords are attached at every intersection by something flimsy that will break, such as zip ties, just strong enough to hold the cords in place in a mesh configuration. Imagine this net with dimensions about 50 meters width by about 200 meters length, suspended about 120 meters above water on one end, perhaps 40 meters on the other. Imagine a fly-back first stage where the target is the spot shown. The notion is to have the stage punch thru the mesh and get caught on the aft control surface, at which time it will hang upside down: This booster stage I have envisioned as a jet fuel/Lox burner. The payload (a second stage) rides up top with the second stage nozzle over a four rail tepee structure with rollers on the rails. The reasoning is that the stage would fly back, hit the net at an angle of about 20 degrees from horizontal, the rails push the cords to either side without cutting the cords (the rollers let the cords roll back) at which time the aft control surfaces catch the cords. I thought of having an ascent configuration as shown on the right side and a descent/catch configuration shown on the left side below. The reasoning is that the leading edge is sharp but the trailing edge is wide or rounded so you don?t cut the cords during the catch event. He notion then would be to fly back, bleed off as much speed as possible, use the aerodynamic lift to fly back at a glide ratio of perhaps 3 to 1, maybe 4 to 1. Late in flight, the aft control surfaces are rotated thru 180 degrees. In the last second before impact with the net, the forward control surfaces are jettisoned so the rocket can pass thru the net, and the booster is caught by those aft control surfaces. Note the aft control surfaces are forward of the aft lift surfaces. This landing scheme allows the first stage booster to use every bit of the fuel in the tanks. It lands the booster back at Cape Canaveral where it started, reducing recovery cost and time. It protects all that expensive sexy control hardware in the aft end of the bird. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 27889 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 13079 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 20166 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 22137 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 3 22:06:06 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 14:06:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard On 03/01/2021 17:12, Spike wrote: >>... We have collectively missed Orwell's lesson. Anyone here who has not read Nineteen Eighty Four, please stop what you are doing and read it. Understand what he is saying there. It is a message for our times. >...Yes, I second that. To my shame, I only read it relatively recently, and immediately realised I should have done so long ago. It should be part of everyone's education (together with in-depth explanations and discussions of its meaning and relevance to the real world, on several levels), imo. -- Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ Ben thanks for that comment. It warms the cockles of me heart. This message has special meaning for me, as I have friends who lived in Ukraine in the final days of communism. They explain clearly why Americans seldom understand: we have always lived in a place were everything was money-limited rather than availability limited. In America, if you have the money, you can buy whatever and as much of whatever you want. In Ukraine during communism, people had money, but there wasn't the availability of western goods, which is what people really wanted. The people in the party somehow managed to get access to these items, even without a large amount of money. They just knew when and where the goods would be and could make arrangements to own those. Hearing a description of that system from a firsthand point of view was an eye-opener. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 22:48:48 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 16:48:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> Message-ID: Time enough for mindful actions could prevent falling down. Time enough to consider long term consequences could prevent downfalls. MIke Gargantua "Drink always before the thirst and it will never come upon you. " There's the right answer: prevention. Plenty of ways to prevent falling, nonslip things in the bathroom, reduce medication (my case) to lower dizziness, accompany the person, walkers of many types (cane at the very least), proper shoes. Problem "I am too young for these damned things. They are for old people. I am not old." So we have a person who is willing to die to keep up his denial.. Me - I don't care what people think. bill w On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 3:50 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 3, 2021, 4:33 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Then again, no reason not to pursue many strategies here. And I would out >> all my eggs in the most radical approach. After all, promises of AI, >> nanotechnology assemblers, cheap fusion, space migration, uploading, etc. >> have been made over decades and not kept. So better to try many strategies >> in case the seemingly obvious radical ones don?t pan out before you >> (rhetorical) have a life-ending hip fracture. (From your comment, it seems >> you already agree.) >> > > Absolutely. The prevailing wisdom is to do everything you can live long > enough to live forever. I'm for slowing ageing. I'm for slowing life in > general. Time enough for mindful actions could prevent falling down. Time > enough to consider long term consequences could prevent downfalls. > >> _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 3 22:50:21 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 16:50:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Animal Farm has plenty of lessons too. bill w On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 3:18 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 03/01/2021 17:12, Spike wrote: > > We have collectively missed Orwell's lesson. Anyone here who has not > read Nineteen Eighty Four, please stop what you are doing and read it. > Understand what he is saying there. It is a message for our times. > > Yes, I second that. To my shame, I only read it relatively recently, and > immediately realised I should have done so long ago. It should be part > of everyone's education (together with in-depth explanations and > discussions of its meaning and relevance to the real world, on several > levels), imo. > > -- > 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 msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jan 3 23:56:39 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 18:56:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 3, 2021, 5:58 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Time enough for mindful actions could prevent falling down. Time enough to > consider long term consequences could prevent downfalls. MIke Gargantua > "Drink always before the thirst and it will never come upon you. " There's > the right answer: prevention. Plenty of ways to prevent falling, > nonslip things in the bathroom, reduce medication (my case) to lower > dizziness, accompany the person, walkers of many types (cane at the very > least), proper shoes. > > Problem "I am too young for these damned things. They are for old > people. I am not old." So we have a person who is willing to die to keep > up his denial.. Me - I don't care what people think. > bill w > I know we like more substantive posts but I just wanted to "+1" this for its simplicity and also the difficulty so many experience in getting to it. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 00:15:20 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 16:15:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> Message-ID: <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard >? answer: prevention. Plenty of ways to prevent falling?. >?Problem "I am too young for these damned things. They are for old people. I am not old." So we have a person who is willing to die to keep up his denial.. Me - I don't care what people think. bill w I have a strategy to deal with that: adopt all those old-man affects while still pre-geezer. Start by commenting ?uuunnnk? when plopping down in a chair, then uttering a mighty ?aaaarrrruummp? when rising back out of it, the way grandpa did, but start it early enough that grandpa is alive and well to demonstrate proper technique. Wear clothing that is 70 years out of style, drive a stodgy old Lincoln (check and check) wear really ugly orthopedic shoes starting in one?s 30s. Take on speech patterns common in the 1940s, such as whenever some yahoo is being annoying, you quote Moe from the Three Stooges: ?Why I aughta?? View any movie made by Jimmy Stewart after he was about 60: Stewart did geezer right, better than anyone. Do all these things, then when it is time to start using a cane, locals will wonder why you waited so long. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 00:42:00 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 16:42:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com >?I have a strategy to deal with that: adopt all those old-man affects while still pre-geezer?spike This strategy has its disadvantages of course. People overestimate one?s age, particularly those of us whose hair turned white prematurely. The other day I was at the gym when a woman began to eyeball me lustfully. She came over and struck up a conversation, perhaps hoping to get some action, starting with the old ?Pardon me sir, you look familiar. Perhaps we have crossed paths before?? It wasn?t just small talk, for she had failed to realize that her third child and I were high school classmates. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 00:53:53 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 00:53:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> References: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 3 Jan 2021 at 22:02, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Imagine four sturdy towers with a mesh net made of nylon cord of about 3 cm diameter with cord centers at about 30 cm. The cords are attached at every intersection by something flimsy that will break, such as zip ties, just strong enough to hold the cords in place in a mesh configuration. > > > spike > _______________________________________________ It's called the Super Heavy Booster because it is *heavy*. :) I think the dry weight of Stage 1 is about 300 metric tons. Gotta get a really big strong net! BillK From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 01:03:05 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 17:03:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2021 4:42 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] geezer guard From: spike at rainier66.com > >?I have a strategy to deal with that: adopt all those old-man affects while still pre-geezer?spike >?This strategy has its disadvantages of course. People overestimate one?s age, particularly those of us whose hair turned white prematurely. ?spike Ours is a fortunate generation, for we have access to recorded information on how old people use to act a long time ago: we are not forced to merely remember how our own grandparents did, which is fallible since some of our grandparents were hipsters. Now we can get DVDs of such classics as Roy Rogers movies (if it is proper to refer to that in the plural (Rogers didn?t actually make over 60 movies (he made one movie over 60 times.))) If you go that route, keep in mind that Dale is a woman and Gabby is a man, demonstrating that they had a sense of humor back in those days. The best part of it is, most of the silly waste of cellulose is available free if you have Amazon Prime. Be warned of course that if you view the pleasant but inane material, you can never recover the time you invested in it. You will forever be dumber: you will not know the stuff you could have learned while you were vegging out listening to Dale and Roy singing about cows and cow pokes, but if you do, my advice to the young: don?t spend too much time pondering what exactly is involved in the job duties of being a cow ?poke? and how that particular profession came to have that name. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 01:18:42 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 17:18:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: References: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001801d6e237$8ab0ce90$a0126bb0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2021 4:54 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems On Sun, 3 Jan 2021 at 22:02, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Imagine four sturdy towers with a mesh net made of nylon cord of about 3 cm diameter with cord centers at about 30 cm. The cords are attached at every intersection by something flimsy that will break, such as zip ties, just strong enough to hold the cords in place in a mesh configuration. > > > spike > _______________________________________________ It's called the Super Heavy Booster because it is *heavy*. :) I think the dry weight of Stage 1 is about 300 metric tons. Gotta get a really big strong net! BillK _______________________________________________ Ja, but it comes down empty. We can do some ballpark figures in our heads. Imagine a first stage, 4 meters diameter, length 30 meters. Agreed those dimensions would be suitable to support the upper stages during a 2 g launch event? OK, Lox is about the same density as water, a little higher, kerosene is lower than water, but you need less of it, so we can just use water density for BOTEC estimate. Those dimensions return a fuel/oxidizer mass of about 400 tons. A typical Lox/JP4 first stage has a ratio of about 1/11 range, so lets go with the heavy end, about 40 tons, which is about the mass of an empty Boeing 737. A single strand of that 3 cm diameter nylon cord is good for 15 tons. Get several of them working together, they should be able to deal with the momentum of our 737 eqivalent. If we can slow it down enough before impact with the net, we aughta be able to catch and suspend something of that mass. spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 01:48:22 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 01:48:22 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: <001801d6e237$8ab0ce90$a0126bb0$@rainier66.com> References: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> <001801d6e237$8ab0ce90$a0126bb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 4 Jan 2021 at 01:20, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Ja, but it comes down empty. > > We can do some ballpark figures in our heads. Imagine a first stage, 4 > meters diameter, length 30 meters. Agreed those dimensions would be > suitable to support the upper stages during a 2 g launch event? > > OK, Lox is about the same density as water, a little higher, kerosene is > lower than water, but you need less of it, so we can just use water density > for BOTEC estimate. Those dimensions return a fuel/oxidizer mass of about > 400 tons. A typical Lox/JP4 first stage has a ratio of about 1/11 range, so > lets go with the heavy end, about 40 tons, which is about the mass of an > empty Boeing 737. > > A single strand of that 3 cm diameter nylon cord is good for 15 tons. Get > several of them working together, they should be able to deal with the > momentum of our 737 eqivalent. If we can slow it down enough before impact > with the net, we aughta be able to catch and suspend something of that mass. > > spike > _______________________________________________ I don't think you appreciate just how big these things are! :) 300 metric tons is the dry weight of Stage1 booster. He wants to put about 3,000 metric tons of fuel in it. The Stage2 Starship on top is not quite as big as that again, but it goes to orbit. I'm looking at some spaceX stats. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 01:51:42 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 17:51:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: References: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000401d6e23c$27431070$75c93150$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat > > > spike > _______________________________________________ >...It's called the Super Heavy Booster because it is *heavy*. :) I think the dry weight of Stage 1 is about 300 metric tons. Gotta get a really big strong net! BillK _______________________________________________ Hi BillK, I see you specified dry weight of 300 tons. OK that notion I posted was a scaled down version of catching a 300 ton first stage. Something that big is hard to see how they would catch it. I can envision doing something like a net recovery for something of 40 tons however. spike From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 02:05:18 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 18:05:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: References: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> <001801d6e237$8ab0ce90$a0126bb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000701d6e23e$0dacb380$29061a80$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ >...I don't think you appreciate just how big these things are! :) >...300 metric tons is the dry weight of Stage1 booster. He wants to put about 3,000 metric tons of fuel in it. The Stage2 Starship on top is not quite as big as that again, but it goes to orbit. I'm looking at some spaceX stats. BillK _______________________________________________ Ja I misread the first post, my apologies. I don't think as big as Elon Musk does. Guess that's why he's rich and Im not. That notion of catching the first stage in a net is growing on me. I can see something like that working out and possibly having some advantages over a feet-first landing: your payload ratio might be better, even at the expense of longer turn-around times. Hard to say: it sounds like an interesting portion of the envelope that hasn't been explored. I wouldn't be surprised if they were working on something like this back in the 1950s and 60s when so much innovative rocket science was taking place, but they didn't really have the control systems in those days which were up to the task. A human-controlled flight into a net is too risky and too slow (humans can't react fast enough to control something that unforgiving.) I think we could do this now however. spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 02:13:14 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 02:13:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: <000701d6e23e$0dacb380$29061a80$@rainier66.com> References: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> <001801d6e237$8ab0ce90$a0126bb0$@rainier66.com> <000701d6e23e$0dacb380$29061a80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 4 Jan 2021 at 02:07, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Ja I misread the first post, my apologies. > > I don't think as big as Elon Musk does. > > Guess that's why he's rich and Im not. > > That notion of catching the first stage in a net is growing on me. I can > see something like that working out and possibly having some advantages > over a feet-first landing: your payload ratio might be better, even at the > expense of longer turn-around times. Hard to say: it sounds like an > interesting portion of the envelope that hasn't been explored. > > I wouldn't be surprised if they were working on something like this back in > the 1950s and 60s when so much innovative rocket science was taking place, > but they didn't really have the control systems in those days which were up > to the task. A human-controlled flight into a net is too risky and too slow > (humans can't react fast enough to control something that unforgiving.) I > think we could do this now however. > > spike > _______________________________________________ As I understand it, he wants it to return like his earlier boosters, but to land back at the launch tower, standing on the base fins and using the launch tower arm to hold the rocket in position. So not really 'catching' it. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 02:18:08 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 18:18:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: <000701d6e23e$0dacb380$29061a80$@rainier66.com> References: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> <001801d6e237$8ab0ce90$a0126bb0$@rainier66.com> <000701d6e23e$0dacb380$29061a80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000a01d6e23f$d8416630$88c43290$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: spike at rainier66.com > _______________________________________________ >...A human-controlled flight into a net is too risky and too slow (humans can't react fast enough to control something that unforgiving.) I think we could do this now however. spike Something occurred to me. Instead of the towers supporting the net at the four corners, we could use a natural feature such as a mountain, carve out an opening of the shape and size such that the net could be mounted on the ground on the sides of the opening. It would require a lot of earth-moving but we are good at that. This idea wouldn't apply at Cape Canaveral: there are no mountains or even hills nearby. But we could do something like that for launches out of Vandenberg. I know the place where such a thing can be constructed, where the net supports all the way around would be on solid ground. It is within 20 miles of VAFB Launch Pad 6 and close enough to the coast there isn't a lotta problem with Nervous Nellies objecting to huge flying rocket stages coming down to a hole in the ground just a little ways up the street. That might work. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 02:23:17 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 20:23:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: High tech for cows: now we poke them with electrified sticks. What is the over 60 Stewart movie, Spike? And don't forget Whip Wilson and Lash LaRue and Hoppy! Our generations can say "I remember buttermilk" and know what we mean. bill w On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 7:04 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > *Sent:* Sunday, January 3, 2021 4:42 PM > *To:* 'ExI chat list' > *Cc:* spike at rainier66.com > *Subject:* RE: [ExI] geezer guard > > > > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > > >?I have a strategy to deal with that: adopt all those old-man affects > while still pre-geezer?spike > > > > > > >?This strategy has its disadvantages of course. People overestimate > one?s age, particularly those of us whose hair turned white prematurely. > ?spike > > > > > > > > Ours is a fortunate generation, for we have access to recorded information > on how old people use to act a long time ago: we are not forced to merely > remember how our own grandparents did, which is fallible since some of our > grandparents were hipsters. > > > > Now we can get DVDs of such classics as Roy Rogers movies (if it is proper > to refer to that in the plural (Rogers didn?t actually make over 60 movies > (he made one movie over 60 times.))) If you go that route, keep in mind > that Dale is a woman and Gabby is a man, demonstrating that they had a > sense of humor back in those days. The best part of it is, most of the > silly waste of cellulose is available free if you have Amazon Prime. Be > warned of course that if you view the pleasant but inane material, you can > never recover the time you invested in it. You will forever be dumber: you > will not know the stuff you could have learned while you were vegging out > listening to Dale and Roy singing about cows and cow pokes, but if you do, > my advice to the young: don?t spend too much time pondering what exactly is > involved in the job duties of being a cow ?poke? and how that particular > profession came to have that name. > > > > 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 Mon Jan 4 02:39:36 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 18:39:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard >?High tech for cows: now we poke them with electrified sticks?. There are some cows that are into that kinky stuff, but most of them still go for the original low-tech approach. >? What is the over 60 Stewart movie, Spike? I was thinking Liberty Valence, but I was wrong on that one: Stewart was only 54 then. The Cheyenne Social Club is the only one I have seen of the real post 60 Stewart, now that I look at the list. >? Our generations can say "I remember buttermilk" and know what we mean. bill w If you meant Buttermilk with a capital B, I get the reference. But it isn?t so much remembering: I saw it fairly recently. Now I am forever dumber for having invested the time in knowing what you meant by Buttermilk. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Mon Jan 4 03:27:19 2021 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 22:27:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] I caught the covid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ECCAB23-8326-440F-BBD4-C1B692BA828F@alumni.virginia.edu> I?m happy to report that I?ve fully recovered. I am grateful to have no lasting symptoms or problems. Same is true for my partner and son. Fortunately, I have nothing more to report. ?? -Henry > On Dec 29, 2020, at 7:26 PM, Henry Rivera wrote: > > ? > Just checking in to say I'm better every day. I haven't needed any OTC meds in 2 days. I'm still fatigued and sleeping extra. This thing lingers on and on. Not sure when I'll feel 100%. Thanks for all the support. It's meant a lot. > -Henry > >> On Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 10:54 AM wrote: >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Henry Rivera >> Subject: Re: [ExI] I caught the covid >> >> >...Welp, I?m still sick. My partner and oldest have it too. So at least we can live among each other at my house. ... >> >> ?I caught the covid, and I didn?t get the shot in time. Mmm mmm mmmm.? >> >> -Henry >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Henry, this is ExI, but we unanimously declare this forum the Rivera family cheerleader squad. This it will stay until you and yours are healthy again. We will do the pom poms if necessary, perhaps stop short of the poodle skirts. Stay in there, fight fight fight, drive to the goal. >> >> spike >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 05:06:03 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 13:06:03 +0800 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Just Created a Catalyst That Turns CO2 Into Jet Fuel Message-ID: An amazing development for the protection of the environment! : ) "For years now, chemists have been trying to apply this idea to one of the most environmentally damaging sectors of our economy: the aviation industry. Not only do planes emit huge amounts of CO2, they also pump other greenhouse gases like nitrogen oxide directly into the upper atmosphere, where their warming effect is greatly increased. The fossil fuels they burn to create all these emissions are hydrocarbons, which means they are made up of a combination of carbon and hydrogen. That?s led some to suggest it might be possible to create synthetic versions of these fuels by capturing the CO2 planes produce and combining it with hydrogen extracted with water. If the energy used to power these reactions came from renewable sources, their production wouldn?t lead to any increase in emissions. And when these fuels were burned they would simply be returning CO2 captured from the atmosphere, making the fuel effectively carbon neutral. It?s a nice idea, but the process of turning CO2 into useful fuels is more complex than it might sound. Most efforts so far have required expensive catalysts?substances that boost the speed of a chemical reaction?or multiple energy-intensive processing steps, which means the resulting fuel is far pricier than fossil fuels. Now though, researchers from the University of Oxford have developed a new low-cost catalyst that can directly convert CO2 into jet fuel, which they say could eventually lay the foundation for a circular economy for aviation fuel. ?Instead of consuming fossil crude oil, jet aviation fuels and petrochemical starting compounds are produced from a valuable and renewable raw material, namely, carbon dioxide,? they write in a paper in *Nature Communications* *."* https://singularityhub.com/2021/01/03/scientists-just-created-a-catalyst-that-turns-co2-into-jet-fuel/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 05:25:22 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 21:25:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] I caught the covid In-Reply-To: <5ECCAB23-8326-440F-BBD4-C1B692BA828F@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <5ECCAB23-8326-440F-BBD4-C1B692BA828F@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: <002401d6e25a$00785b30$01691190$@rainier66.com> Woooohoooo! Excellent news Henry, thanks for that. Cool this is very cool. spike From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Henry Rivera via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2021 7:27 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Henry Rivera Subject: Re: [ExI] I caught the covid I?m happy to report that I?ve fully recovered. I am grateful to have no lasting symptoms or problems. Same is true for my partner and son. Fortunately, I have nothing more to report. ?? -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 06:16:28 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 22:16:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Just Created a Catalyst That Turns CO2 Into Jet Fuel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'll believe it when they can produce fuel cost numbers. Good progress if they really do get the cost down, though. On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 9:06 PM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > An amazing development for the protection of the environment! : ) > > "For years now, chemists have been trying to apply this idea to one of the > most environmentally damaging sectors of our economy: the aviation > industry. Not only do planes emit huge amounts of CO2, they also pump other > greenhouse gases like nitrogen oxide directly into the upper atmosphere, > where their warming effect is greatly increased. > > The fossil fuels they burn to create all these emissions are hydrocarbons, > which means they are made up of a combination of carbon and hydrogen. > That?s led some to suggest it might be possible to create synthetic > versions of these fuels by capturing the CO2 planes produce and combining > it with hydrogen extracted with water. > > If the energy used to power > these reactions came from renewable sources, their production wouldn?t lead > to any increase in emissions. And when these fuels were burned they would > simply be returning CO2 captured from the atmosphere, making the fuel > effectively carbon neutral. > > It?s a nice idea, but the process of turning CO2 into useful fuels is more > complex than it might sound. Most efforts so far have required expensive > catalysts?substances that boost the speed of a chemical reaction?or > multiple energy-intensive processing steps, which means the resulting > fuel is far pricier than fossil fuels. > > Now though, researchers from the University of Oxford have developed a new > low-cost catalyst that can directly convert CO2 into jet fuel, which they > say could eventually lay the foundation for a circular economy for aviation > fuel. > > ?Instead of consuming fossil crude oil, jet aviation fuels and > petrochemical starting compounds are produced from a valuable and renewable > raw material, namely, carbon dioxide,? they write in a paper in *Nature > Communications* *."* > > > https://singularityhub.com/2021/01/03/scientists-just-created-a-catalyst-that-turns-co2-into-jet-fuel/ > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 4 14:42:09 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 08:42:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Now just what was the name of the Jeep- Nellybelle? I have a conventional stereo amp. Two channels. If I split the wires and try to get two speakers on one lead I think it changes the ohms from 8 to 4, and somehow that is not good. Is there a way around this? bill w On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 8:41 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] geezer guard > > > > >?High tech for cows: now we poke them with electrified sticks?. > > > > There are some cows that are into that kinky stuff, but most of them still > go for the original low-tech approach. > > > > >? What is the over 60 Stewart movie, Spike? > > > > I was thinking Liberty Valence, but I was wrong on that one: Stewart was > only 54 then. The Cheyenne Social Club is the only one I have seen of the > real post 60 Stewart, now that I look at the list. > > > > >? Our generations can say "I remember buttermilk" and know what we > mean. bill w > > > > If you meant Buttermilk with a capital B, I get the reference. But it > isn?t so much remembering: I saw it fairly recently. Now I am forever > dumber for having invested the time in knowing what you meant by Buttermilk. > > > > 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 Mon Jan 4 05:28:04 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2021 21:28:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] intelligent design Message-ID: <002b01d6e25a$60d4c860$227e5920$@rainier66.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 288044 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 17:15:31 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 12:15:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 9:44 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I have a conventional stereo amp. Two channels. If I split the wires and > try to get two speakers on one lead I think it changes the ohms from 8 to > 4, and somehow that is not good. Is there a way around this? > If they're both 8 ohms then wiring in parallel will result in 4 ohms, but wiring in series will result in 16 ohms. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 17:37:14 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 11:37:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: In other words there is no correct way to run four speakers from a two channel amp. bill w On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 11:17 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 9:44 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> I have a conventional stereo amp. Two channels. If I split the wires >> and try to get two speakers on one lead I think it changes the ohms from 8 >> to 4, and somehow that is not good. Is there a way around this? >> > > If they're both 8 ohms then wiring in parallel will result in 4 ohms, but > wiring in series will result in 16 ohms. > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > 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 Mon Jan 4 18:19:59 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 13:19:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 12:39 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > In other words there is no correct way to run four speakers from a two > channel amp. > No. Serial would be safe. Or you could add 8-ohm resistors to the two 8-ohm speakers and wire them parallel. Disclaimer: I'm not an electrical engineer, so do anything I suggest at your own risk. :-) On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 11:17 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 9:44 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> I have a conventional stereo amp. Two channels. If I split the wires >>> and try to get two speakers on one lead I think it changes the ohms from 8 >>> to 4, and somehow that is not good. Is there a way around this? >>> >> >> If they're both 8 ohms then wiring in parallel will result in 4 ohms, but >> wiring in series will result in 16 ohms. >> > -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 4 18:29:48 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 10:29:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005f01d6e2c7$95ca9820$c15fc860$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 12:39 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: In other words there is no correct way to run four speakers from a two channel amp. >?No. Serial would be safe. Or you could add 8-ohm resistors to the two 8-ohm speakers and wire them parallel. >?Disclaimer: I'm not an electrical engineer, so do anything I suggest at your own risk. :-) >?-Dave The hardcore audio guys say that speakers need to be impedance-matched, so you would need parallel inductors as well as parallel resistance. I am not that much into the sound scene, so the best bet might be to just try it with nothing, then mess with adding resistors and inductors if your ear is noticing something is up. BillW, you have friends around there who can listen to your system and advise, ja? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 18:41:53 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 13:41:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <005f01d6e2c7$95ca9820$c15fc860$@rainier66.com> References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> <005f01d6e2c7$95ca9820$c15fc860$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 1:31 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > The hardcore audio guys say that speakers need to be impedance-matched, so > you would need parallel inductors as well as parallel resistance. I am not > that much into the sound scene, so the best bet might be to just try it > with nothing, then mess with adding resistors and inductors if your ear is > noticing something is up. > No, "just try it" is unsafe. If the impedance is too low, the amplifier will overheat. The safe thing to do is wire the extra speakers in series. Doubling the impedance will halve the power output of the amplifier, but it's completely safe. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 19:03:22 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 14:03:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> <005f01d6e2c7$95ca9820$c15fc860$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 4, 2021, 1:43 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > No, "just try it" is unsafe. If the impedance is too low, the amplifier > will overheat. The safe thing to do is wire the extra speakers in series. > Doubling the impedance will halve the power output of the amplifier, but > it's completely safe. > Is the option available to get a new amp? Two speakers suggests you pulled this dinosaur from a forgotten audio bin :) You can get a decent bluetooth party kit for ~ $100 (give or take, even a single dedicated speaker sounds better than your phone and can probably do 20 hours on a charge) if you are looking for a proper audiophile sound experience, still i suggest you spend on a surround sound rig that's meant to sound actually good. Unless you're just futzing will old parts for the lulz, in which case you should play around until you toast it and then buy new. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 4 19:35:53 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 13:35:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <096B5B13-A603-4BC5-8D2C-4B8D8B190DFB@gmail.com> <004101d6e22e$b0e06fc0$12a14f40$@rainier66.com> <000401d6e232$6ac780b0$40568210$@rainier66.com> <000a01d6e235$5c0b0b20$14212160$@rainier66.com> <002801d6e242$d7de3030$879a9090$@rainier66.com> <005f01d6e2c7$95ca9820$c15fc860$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: My Macintosh with 200 watts per channel RMS is no dinosaur - OK, it has some age, but it's great; far better than I can hear with two hearing aids. Yes, I was going to ask if I could run one set of speakers from one receiver and the other from another one. But how do I connect the two receivers to my CD player? No - I have one receiver, builtin preamp and amp, and one system with separate preamp and amp (the Mac). The Mac has to run the Bose speakers, (circa 1970, model I) which just eats watts. The others can be run with the receiver. The problem is that I have to separate the Bose so far apart that even they cannot fill the middle, so I have four little guys and a separate woofer (builtin amp for that one). Thanks for all the help. bill w On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 1:05 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 4, 2021, 1:43 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> No, "just try it" is unsafe. If the impedance is too low, the amplifier >> will overheat. The safe thing to do is wire the extra speakers in series. >> Doubling the impedance will halve the power output of the amplifier, but >> it's completely safe. >> > > Is the option available to get a new amp? > > Two speakers suggests you pulled this dinosaur from a forgotten audio bin > :) > > You can get a decent bluetooth party kit for ~ $100 (give or take, even a > single dedicated speaker sounds better than your phone and can probably do > 20 hours on a charge) if you are looking for a proper audiophile sound > experience, still i suggest you spend on a surround sound rig that's meant > to sound actually good. > > Unless you're just futzing will old parts for the lulz, in which case you > should play around until you toast it and then buy new. > >> _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 4 19:39:21 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 13:39:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] for spike et al Message-ID: Yes, I have a guy who has two intact ears and I rely on him to listen for me. But after he leaves I have to adjust the tone controls. My high frequency hearing with the aids is better than his. If you ever get hearing aids, and probably all males over 60 need them, be sure to get a remote control for volume - turn down at Walmart, etc. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 5 17:53:14 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2021 11:53:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: wisdom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: William Flynn Wallace Date: Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 12:03 PM My Quora answer to what is wise; This is your answer in a nutshell: a wise person can put just about anything into perspective, into context. When to get angry; when not to; when to feel nervous and when not to ; when to take somebody else seriously and when not to. And so on for hundreds of situations. The wise person knows that most situations resolve themselves with little or no help and most of our worries just stress us and don?t solve anything. A wise person may get extremely upset, but it?s usually about injustice and inequality in the world, not their own or others? personal problems. A global perspective. A wise person never trivializes a problem, even if he knows that it is really trivial, even if it?s a small child who is upset about a bunch of nothing (teens too here). It is very difficult for a young person to be wise, They just haven?t seen enough of the world to make judgments as to the importance of situations and just how to go about trying to fix them. But age does not guarantee wisdom. That takes all the kinds of intelligence there are, and a lifetime of thinking about people without resorting to cognitive biases, stereotypes, and so on. Now whether the above is actually wise is not for me to say, but that?s my take on it. (Yeah, I am full of it - chutzpah, that is - I am 78 - I am going to take a shot at anything) Opinions welcome bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 6 22:23:28 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 22:23:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots Message-ID: Microsoft has filed a patent which raises the intriguing possibility of digitally reincarnating people as a chat bot. Quotes: Barry Collins Consumer Tech Jan 4, 2021 Instead of using the conventional method of training chat bots using conversations and material from a wide sample of users, Microsoft?s patent - as spotted by Ubergizmo - raises the possibility of creating a chat bot from the output of a specific person. The system would use ?social data? such as ?images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages [and] written letters? to build a profile of a person. ?The social data may be used to create or modify a special index in the theme of the specific person?s personality,? the patent states. ?The special index may be used to train a chat bot to converse and interact in the personality of a specific person.? The chat bot could even sound like the real person. ?In some aspects, a voice font of the specific person may be generated using recordings and sound data related to the specific person,? the patent claims. What?s more, ?a 2D/3D model of the specific person may be generated using images, depth information, and/or video data associated with the specific person?. ---------------- So that's voice, image and opinions included. It doesn't get much more real than that. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 6 23:15:45 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 15:15:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots Microsoft has filed a patent which raises the intriguing possibility of digitally reincarnating people as a chat bot. ... BillK _______________________________________________ I prefer the term "coincarnate" where they bring me over from the living. It would be a fun toy if it works. spike From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jan 6 23:16:18 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 16:16:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yayy, another achievement of a small part of what I refer to as an "estate" in my 1229 story back in 2002, about the period between when the last person dies, and true justice is achieved (everyone resurrected...). (I call this the 'millenium') Not only should we do things like this for EVERYONE that dies, but an AI should be started to manage their estates. To the best of its ability, it would seek to do things it's namesake would do like donate to surviving descendents education, donate to worthy startups, and such. It would also continue to seek to restore all the memories of the dead person, with the ultimate goal of recovering 100% of what is required to do a true resurrection of that person. Until this 100% real resurrection was proven and achieved, everything would be considered to be just an abstract representation of the real person, as portrayed in this Superman movie . On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 3:25 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Microsoft has filed a patent which raises the intriguing possibility > of digitally reincarnating people as a chat bot. > > < > https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2021/01/04/microsoft-could-bring-you-back-from-the-dead-as-a-chat-bot/ > > > > Quotes: > Barry Collins Consumer Tech Jan 4, 2021 > > Instead of using the conventional method of training chat bots using > conversations and material from a wide sample of users, Microsoft?s > patent - as spotted by Ubergizmo - raises the possibility of creating > a chat bot from the output of a specific person. > > The system would use ?social data? such as ?images, voice data, social > media posts, electronic messages [and] written letters? to build a > profile of a person. > > ?The social data may be used to create or modify a special index in > the theme of the specific person?s personality,? the patent states. > ?The special index may be used to train a chat bot to converse and > interact in the personality of a specific person.? > > The chat bot could even sound like the real person. ?In some aspects, > a voice font of the specific person may be generated using recordings > and sound data related to the specific person,? the patent claims. > > What?s more, ?a 2D/3D model of the specific person may be generated > using images, depth information, and/or video data associated with the > specific person?. > ---------------- > > So that's voice, image and opinions included. It doesn't get much > more real than that. > > 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 6 23:45:46 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 17:45:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So that's voice, image and opinions included. It doesn't get much more real than that. BillK In a scifi book whose title I cannot remember, the current king or queen can go into a room and converse with a past king or queen, represented by a holo, about their 'take' on the current situation. When a ruler dies their personality is uploaded to provide advice to the current ruler. bill w On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 5:23 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Yayy, another achievement of a small part of what I refer to as an > "estate" in my 1229 story > back > in 2002, about the period between when the last person dies, and true > justice is achieved (everyone resurrected...). (I call this the > 'millenium') > > Not only should we do things like this for EVERYONE that dies, but an AI > should be started to manage their estates. To the best of its ability, it > would seek to do things it's namesake would do like donate to > surviving descendents education, donate to worthy startups, and such. It > would also continue to seek to restore all the memories of the dead person, > with the ultimate goal of recovering 100% of what is required to do a true > resurrection of that person. > Until this 100% real resurrection was proven and achieved, everything > would be considered to be just an abstract representation of the real > person, as portrayed in this Superman movie > . > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 3:25 PM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Microsoft has filed a patent which raises the intriguing possibility >> of digitally reincarnating people as a chat bot. >> >> < >> https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2021/01/04/microsoft-could-bring-you-back-from-the-dead-as-a-chat-bot/ >> > >> >> Quotes: >> Barry Collins Consumer Tech Jan 4, 2021 >> >> Instead of using the conventional method of training chat bots using >> conversations and material from a wide sample of users, Microsoft?s >> patent - as spotted by Ubergizmo - raises the possibility of creating >> a chat bot from the output of a specific person. >> >> The system would use ?social data? such as ?images, voice data, social >> media posts, electronic messages [and] written letters? to build a >> profile of a person. >> >> ?The social data may be used to create or modify a special index in >> the theme of the specific person?s personality,? the patent states. >> ?The special index may be used to train a chat bot to converse and >> interact in the personality of a specific person.? >> >> The chat bot could even sound like the real person. ?In some aspects, >> a voice font of the specific person may be generated using recordings >> and sound data related to the specific person,? the patent claims. >> >> What?s more, ?a 2D/3D model of the specific person may be generated >> using images, depth information, and/or video data associated with the >> specific person?. >> ---------------- >> >> So that's voice, image and opinions included. It doesn't get much >> more real than that. >> >> 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 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 00:00:41 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 19:00:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 5:25 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > So that's voice, image and opinions included. It doesn't get much > more real than that. Even with current bleeding edge tech, it's still nothing more than a dead behind the eyes, cheap simulacrum. An interesting parlor trick perhaps, but nothing more, unless we solve the hard problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 00:48:23 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 17:48:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It?s only a matter of time before every piece of external behavior can be perfectly duplicated by abstract systems. But there will always be a difference between the abstract (a word like ?red? which requires a dictionary to know what it means) and a physical redness quality (does not require a dictionary), like we use to represent knowledge of red things with. And of course, if you only have 10% of a person, it still isn?t really, 100% of that person, phenomenal or not, and should not be treated as such. On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 5:02 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 5:25 PM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> So that's voice, image and opinions included. It doesn't get much >> more real than that. > > > Even with current bleeding edge tech, it's still nothing more than a dead > behind the eyes, cheap simulacrum. An interesting parlor trick perhaps, > but nothing more, unless we solve the hard problem. > _______________________________________________ > 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 Thu Jan 7 00:52:17 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 17:52:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi Spike, On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 4:16 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I prefer the term "coincarnate" where they bring me over from the living. > It would be a fun toy if it works. > What do you mean by "bring me over from the living"? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 00:54:03 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 19:54:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 6, 2021, 7:02 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 5:25 PM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> So that's voice, image and opinions included. It doesn't get much >> more real than that. > > > Even with current bleeding edge tech, it's still nothing more than a dead > behind the eyes, cheap simulacrum. An interesting parlor trick perhaps, > but nothing more, unless we solve the hard problem. > It's interesting (to me at least) that I was just proposing AI to assist in the capture or reclamation of elder memories being analogous to the reclamation of contexts for the cryopreserved. I later saw a software nanny to help teens be less mean by intercepting texts and asking if the sender intends to be a bully (93% reword their mean messages when made mindful) This made me realize that ai-mediated exchanges can translate words to higher dimensional objects (extended symbolsets and memeplex references) then reduced to the receiver's words. There's no way we will manually invest the attention to craft sentences with sufficient nuance to be optimally understood... but an ai interface that has trained on our every interaction can easily annotate every sentence with personal backstory, cultural references, and current mood. If Microsoft is already pouring every other tick of the clock into their model of who is using the computer (maybe you own the hardware, but you really only license the OS/software) then they are well positioned interrogate your digital self. By the time it matters whether this version of you is good enough to answer for you, they'll already know how you feel about it because they'll only have to ask the model. Maybe when the model is comfortable admitting that it is you will it be allowed to tell you how you think and feel about it. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 01:05:10 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2021 01:05:10 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 7 Jan 2021 at 00:03, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > > Even with current bleeding edge tech, it's still nothing more than a dead behind the eyes, cheap simulacrum. An interesting parlor trick perhaps, but nothing more, unless we solve the hard problem. > _______________________________________________ Oh, you're disappointed MS aren't creating real people? Really? :) This is only the first step. The patent says that they will use AI to add information that the original person's database doesn't know about. So it will be more knowledgeable than the original. That will be version 2. But if it looks like Dylan, talks like Dylan, responds like Dylan about the same subjects as him; plus it knows about much more than Dylan does - Who's complaining? BillK From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 01:18:04 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 18:18:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Dylan, On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 5:02 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > An interesting parlor trick perhaps, but nothing more, unless we solve the > hard problem. > There is no hard mind body problem, it's just an intrinsic color problem. Of all our abstract descriptions of stuff in the brain, nobody knows which of those is a description of the redness quality our brain uses to represent red things with. Abstract computers represent things with words like 'red'. You need a dictionary to know what that means. We, on the other hand, represent "red" information directly on the red intrinsic quality of something in reality. No dictionary required. In other words, once we discover which of all descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of your redness, we will finally be able to duplicate your redness conscious knowledge. Until then, all they will have is an abstract word like 'red'. As I said in my other post: "It?s only a matter of time before every piece of external behavior can be perfectly duplicated by abstract systems. But there will always be a difference between the abstract (a word like ?red? which requires a dictionary to know what it means) and a physical redness quality (does not require a dictionary), like we use to represent knowledge of red things with." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 7 01:47:27 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 17:47:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Brent Allsop via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots Hi Spike, On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 4:16 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: I prefer the term "coincarnate" where they bring me over from the living. It would be a fun toy if it works. >?What do you mean by "bring me over from the living"? Brent Hi Brent Make one of these digital-mes while I am alive and well to train it. I could be such fine companionship for myself. I could tell me jokes, even do the accents better than I can do them. Consider those text to speech sites: you choose the accent. There?s a bunch of accents I can?t really do. But the software could. I have been told that any joke with accents is not proper, but I disagree. Certainly Scottish is fair game. Those guys have a sensa huma. Even failing that, this digital me would be great. We would have such fun together. Tell ya this: I would try to make digital thems of everyone I care about deeply. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Thu Jan 7 02:00:29 2021 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 21:00:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6C3EDF80-569D-499B-8A96-9A8B040F662E@alumni.virginia.edu> It is an impressive trick. Did anyone else see the 60 Minutes piece on the Illinois Holocaust Museum?s digital memorial? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/holocaust-stories-artificial-intelligence-60-minutes-2020-08-30/ > On Jan 6, 2021, at 7:01 PM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat wrote: > ? >> On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 5:25 PM BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > >> >> So that's voice, image and opinions included. It doesn't get much >> more real than that. > > Even with current bleeding edge tech, it's still nothing more than a dead behind the eyes, cheap simulacrum. An interesting parlor trick perhaps, but nothing more, unless we solve the hard problem. > _______________________________________________ > 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 Thu Jan 7 02:28:15 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 19:28:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi Spike, Ohhhhh thaaat! Brilliant! Thanks to you explaining this, I just added a new entry to my bucket list: to start training such an abstract AI, before I die (And maybe leave a small portion of my estate for seed money, in my will). Not just leave it to my kids to start it. It really would be nice to have something like that to talk to. Now, if at least one experimentalists wold start reporting their results, using more than one abstract word for all things red (i.e. not qualia blind ) so they could discover which of all our descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of my redness I'll be able to make something which can, like me, honestly answer the question: "What is redness like for Brent Allsop?" My bet is still that experimentalists will soon demonstrate (by simply not being qualia blind ) that my redness is simply a particular physical fact, like it could be that our description of glutamate, reacting in a synapse, is a description of Brent Allsop's redness. Demonstrating such would finally falsify all the (what I consider to be 'crap in the gap of our qualia blindness theories') like the predictions that my redness is a "functional fact" or a "spiritual fact". On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 6:48 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *Brent Allsop via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots > > > > Hi Spike, > > > > On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 4:16 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > I prefer the term "coincarnate" where they bring me over from the living. > It would be a fun toy if it works. > > > > >?What do you mean by "bring me over from the living"? Brent > > > > > > Hi Brent > > > > Make one of these digital-mes while I am alive and well to train it. I > could be such fine companionship for myself. I could tell me jokes, even > do the accents better than I can do them. Consider those text to speech > sites: you choose the accent. There?s a bunch of accents I can?t really > do. But the software could. > > > > I have been told that any joke with accents is not proper, but I > disagree. Certainly Scottish is fair game. Those guys have a sensa huma. > Even failing that, this digital me would be great. We would have such > fun together. > > > > Tell ya this: I would try to make digital thems of everyone I care about > deeply. > > > > 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 msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 03:47:38 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 22:47:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 6, 2021, 9:30 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of my redness I'll be > able to make something which can, like me, honestly answer the question: > "What is redness like for Brent Allsop?" > I predict that conversation will be (until the last computable bit in the universe) an argument between Brent-sub0 and Brent-sub1 calling each other qualia blind then restating everything that each has ever said about the redness of red. I might make this prediction one year from now ... but meh, that's been done. :) Fwiw, I've noticed people take everything I say in the worst way possible... so this disclaimer is to assure Brent that I'm razzing him as a sibling in this ExI family and not cyberbullying. That's maybe a conversation for another thread > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 04:27:07 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 21:27:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi MIke, Wait, "qualia blind' is just a label for a language (or anyone) that uses one abstract word for all things red. And it is a fact that if you use one word for all things red, you can't say effing of the ineffable statements that bridge the explanatory gap like you can with statements that do use more than one word for all things red like: "My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call red." [image: image.png] Both Brent-sub0 and Brent-sub1 will understand this, and they will both use more than one word for all things red, so such an argument will not be possible.between them? Or are you saying that Brent-sub1 (like Mike-sub0), unlike brent-sub0, does not yet understand this simple fact about the meaning of 'qualia blind'? In other words, I love razzing right back. ;) On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 8:48 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 6, 2021, 9:30 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of my redness I'll be >> able to make something which can, like me, honestly answer the question: >> "What is redness like for Brent Allsop?" >> > > I predict that conversation will be (until the last computable bit in the > universe) an argument between Brent-sub0 and Brent-sub1 calling each other > qualia blind then restating everything that each has ever said about the > redness of red. > > I might make this prediction one year from now ... but meh, that's been > done. :) > > Fwiw, I've noticed people take everything I say in the worst way > possible... so this disclaimer is to assure Brent that I'm razzing him as a > sibling in this ExI family and not cyberbullying. That's maybe a > conversation for another thread > >> _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 50243 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 7 05:04:03 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 21:04:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00d901d6e4b2$85166f80$8f434e80$@rainier66.com> From: Brent Allsop Subject: Re: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots Hi Spike, >?Ohhhhh thaaat! Brilliant! Brent you are far too kind, sir. You are one of our guys who are that way: too kind. Please, never change. Regarding that never change business: that is a lotta my motivation: I am changing, not for the better, oy vey. I still remember all my best adventures, lotsa cool stuff, but writing it all out isn?t the best way to archive it all. Might do that as well. But I want something I can interact with, ask it to remind me stuff like what the heck I was doing in summer of 1982 for instance. >?Thanks to you explaining this, I just added a new entry to my bucket list: to start training such an abstract AI? Ja, this wouldn?t really need to be an AI exactly, or not what I think of as AI. We could do something like this using an Eliza-like program structure with some way to get to archived stories we told it. I can see the value of having it give those back to us later. It might be as simple as writing the stories in memoir fashion, then having it read them back. From a programming standpoint, it wouldn?t be hard at all. This last part is kinda important: we can do a version of this now. We don?t really need to stretch for anything that doesn?t already exist. Brent it was a good reminder, when you said bucket list: I really gotta get going on this. I have some fun experiences I want to pass along. My life has been way too much fun to let it perish without some kind of record. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 05:10:12 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2021 00:10:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 6, 2021, 11:29 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Both Brent-sub0 and Brent-sub1 will understand this, and they will both > use more than one word for all things red, so such an argument will not be > possible.between them? > Or are you saying that Brent-sub1 (like Mike-sub0), unlike brent-sub0, > does not yet understand this simple fact about the meaning of 'qualia > blind'? > I supposed that Brent-sub1 will know all the words you know and will use them in exactly the same way... but Brent-sub0 will not be satisfied because Brent-sub1 has no glutamate, no eyeballs, no meat, no actual redness of his own... so he/you/they will be entangled in this "effing" conversation forever. :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 7 05:18:33 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 21:18:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00f501d6e4b4$8b92fac0$a2b8f040$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots ? >?Fwiw, I've noticed people take everything I say in the worst way possible... so this disclaimer is to assure Brent that I'm razzing him as a sibling in this ExI family and not cyberbullying. That's maybe a conversation for another thread? Eh, Mike, humor is still allowed, even in our stressed out times. Brent is the kind of guy who has a sensa huma. I met him at one of the Extros, mighta been 5 in about? 2001? San Jose? I was not disappointed. Brent I only wish we woulda had more time. That was an insanely busy time for me at work, but I have fond memories of that meeting. I need to get busy writing a memoir about while I still have you guys available. In any case, Mike, regarding your comment ??I've noticed people take everything I say in the worst way possible...? gave me an idea. To verify or disprove such a notion, we need to somehow create a list of possible ways people can take everything you say. That is a heeeeellll of a job in itself, but once we do, we can put those ways to take everything in a spreadsheet and sort from best to worst, see if people always find the way they take the stuff you say at the bottom of that list. Once we do that, we end up with a new and interesting question: how can we know? that a particular way to take everything is really the worst possible way? How many here were at Extro5 please? I know some who were there for sure: Amara Graps, Anders Sandberg, Robert Bradbury, Brent, Max More, Natasha More, among others, I think Sasha Chislenko was not there, Greg Burch wasn?t, I might be wrong on both of those guys. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 07:28:45 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 23:28:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: And if the evidence went the other way - that the chemical & pattern representation of "red" in one human brain was pretty much the same as in other human brains they tested - would you accept that? Because that would seem to be the null/default hypothesis here. On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 6:29 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hi Spike, > Ohhhhh thaaat! Brilliant! > Thanks to you explaining this, I just added a new entry to my bucket list: > to start training such an abstract AI, before I die (And maybe leave a > small portion of my estate for seed money, in my will). Not just leave it > to my kids to start it. It really would be nice to have something like > that to talk to. > > Now, if at least one experimentalists wold start reporting their results, > using more than one abstract word for all things red (i.e. not qualia > blind ) so they could > discover which of all our descriptions of stuff in the brain is a > description of my redness I'll be able to make something which can, like > me, honestly answer the question: "What is redness like for Brent Allsop?" > > My bet is still that experimentalists will soon demonstrate (by simply not > being qualia blind ) that > my redness is simply a particular physical fact, like it could be that our > description of glutamate, reacting in a synapse, is a > description of Brent Allsop's redness. Demonstrating such would > finally falsify all the (what I consider to be 'crap in the gap of our > qualia blindness theories') like the predictions that my redness is a > "functional fact" or a "spiritual fact". > > On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 6:48 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > *On Behalf Of *Brent Allsop via extropy-chat >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots >> >> >> >> Hi Spike, >> >> >> >> On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 4:16 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> I prefer the term "coincarnate" where they bring me over from the >> living. It would be a fun toy if it works. >> >> >> >> >?What do you mean by "bring me over from the living"? Brent >> >> >> >> >> >> Hi Brent >> >> >> >> Make one of these digital-mes while I am alive and well to train it. I >> could be such fine companionship for myself. I could tell me jokes, even >> do the accents better than I can do them. Consider those text to speech >> sites: you choose the accent. There?s a bunch of accents I can?t really >> do. But the software could. >> >> >> >> I have been told that any joke with accents is not proper, but I >> disagree. Certainly Scottish is fair game. Those guys have a sensa huma. >> Even failing that, this digital me would be great. We would have such >> fun together. >> >> >> >> Tell ya this: I would try to make digital thems of everyone I care about >> deeply. >> >> >> >> 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 brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 17:21:31 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2021 10:21:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Hi Adrian, On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 12:29 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > And if the evidence went the other way - that the chemical & pattern > representation of "red" in one human brain was pretty much the same as in > other human brains they tested - would you accept that? > > Because that would seem to be the null/default hypothesis here. > Normally, I would just point out that you are saying things in a qualia blind way, but evidently people completely miss understanding me, thinking all I'm doing is saying I disagree with the way you are talking, which is not the case. So, instead, I will point out the specific problems, or why and how I can't understand what you are talking about, when you only use one word for all things 'red' like this. When you say: "the chemical & pattern representation of 'red'" you could mean any of the following definitions for the word red: 1. The intrinsic quality of something like a strawberry, or anything that reflects red (650mn) light. 2. You mean red, in the abstract, something that is a label for the intrinsic properties of the strawberry, the light, the "red" detectors in the retina, the word red, and all the other things representing the abstract notion of red in any animal or system. 3. the intrinsic quality of our knowledge of red things, if you are not being qualia blind, you use a different word for this, like redness, and make it obvious that you mean something different, when you say redness, than when you say red. So, when you say: "the chemical & pattern representation of 'red'" do you mean any of these 3 very different things, or maybe something different, entirely? It is a fact of reality that your knowledge of red things could be the same as my greenness quality, which I represent the green things with. It helps if, when you talk about these things, you make it very clear what you are talking/thinking about. You can't talk about things like that, when you are talking the way you are talking, using one word for all things red. It is a fact of reality that my redness could be like your greenness, both of which we call red. You need to use language that includes different words, for different intrinsic qualities, or facts about reality. Otherwise, you are not communicating clearly, you can't model or describe things like effing the ineffable. And if you don't want me to include all of the above, just know that the above is what I'm talking about, when I say someone is talking in ways that are qualia blind, or at best, not communicating very well. So, given all that, maybe you could re-state what you are trying to say,above, in a way which I can understand what you mean, or are trying to say? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 7 21:06:48 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2021 13:06:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Microsoft wants to reincarnate people as chatbots In-Reply-To: References: <000201d6e481$dd9f7f60$98de7e20$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6e497$0e60fc40$2b22f4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 9:21 AM Brent Allsop wrote: > So, when you say: "the chemical & pattern representation of 'red'" do > you mean any of these 3 very different things, or maybe something > different, entirely? > If I were to pick any of those specific definitions, you might respond that you mean something else. I mean the same one you mean. It is a fact of reality that your knowledge of red things could be the same > as my greenness quality, which I represent the green things with. > It could be. You keep talking about this situation as if it is likely, when the null hypothesis is the opposite. So I am asking, what standard of evidence would you accept to demonstrate that your redness quality is essentially the same as most human beings' redness quality? This is not evidence we have today, but we are talking hypothetical measurements. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 8 12:54:34 2021 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 07:54:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <002b01d6e25a$60d4c860$227e5920$@rainier66.com> References: <002b01d6e25a$60d4c860$227e5920$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Now this explains so much about humanity! Lol On Mon, Jan 4, 2021, 11:04 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > > > > [image: image.png] > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 288044 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 288044 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 8 18:55:02 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 12:55:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] free speech Message-ID: I am afraid that many countries around the world - their leaders I mean - are going to see what is happening to our democracy/republic as a result of free speech. There have to be very few countries in the world who would have put up with what has been happening on social media, what with the fringes, conspiracy theories, antigovernment rhetoric and all the rest. They would have suppressed them from the beginning. Many would have gone to jail in China and some other places. Egypt. If we want to keep our free speech we have to get through these challenges to our beloved system, flawed though it may be. No free speech, no free country. One of the shameful things about the episode in D. C. is the failure of our protectors to repel the occupation far before it pierced the Senate chambers. Heads fell, I read in the news. Good. It was a pitiful demonstration of foresight and effective crowd management. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 8 19:06:15 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 11:06:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005901d6e5f1$57252720$056f7560$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >? >?One of the shameful things about the episode in D. C. is the failure of our protectors to repel the occupation far before it pierced the Senate chambers. Heads fell, I read in the news. Good. It was a pitiful demonstration of foresight and effective crowd management. bill w Ja, I agree. I wouldn?ta guessed the senate chamber was that vulnerable without a safe-exit tunnel to the observatory or evacuation site with capacity sufficient for several hundred congress people. Bet they will build one now. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Fri Jan 8 19:31:36 2021 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 12:31:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: <005901d6e5f1$57252720$056f7560$@rainier66.com> References: <005901d6e5f1$57252720$056f7560$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yes. We will finally get to see what happens when, in the words of V, "People shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people". Can't say I'm optimistic, tbh. On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 12:07 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *>?* > > > > >?One of the shameful things about the episode in D. C. is the failure of > our protectors to repel the occupation far before it pierced the Senate > chambers. Heads fell, I read in the news. Good. It was a pitiful > demonstration of foresight and effective crowd management. bill w > > > > > > Ja, I agree. I wouldn?ta guessed the senate chamber was that vulnerable > without a safe-exit tunnel to the observatory or evacuation site with > capacity sufficient for several hundred congress people. Bet they will > build one now. > > > > 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 Jan 8 19:39:18 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 13:39:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: <005901d6e5f1$57252720$056f7560$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Well, you know, Darin, look at the Republicans. They ignored the extremely low ratings Congress was getting. Look at what happened to them: first they lost the House, then they lost the Presidential election, then they lost the Senate. Do you think that somehow those things got their attention? Do you think that a majority of them will stay with Trump? I have to doubt that reason will prevail in Washington, but with these defeats, it might. Dump all the losers and their followers. Their followers did not win them the elections. Support for Trump helped nobody (well, I made that one up, but I'll bet he helped few). bill w On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 1:33 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Yes. We will finally get to see what happens when, in the words of V, > "People shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be > afraid of their people". > > Can't say I'm optimistic, tbh. > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 12:07 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >> *>?* >> >> >> >> >?One of the shameful things about the episode in D. C. is the failure >> of our protectors to repel the occupation far before it pierced the Senate >> chambers. Heads fell, I read in the news. Good. It was a pitiful >> demonstration of foresight and effective crowd management. bill w >> >> >> >> >> >> Ja, I agree. I wouldn?ta guessed the senate chamber was that vulnerable >> without a safe-exit tunnel to the observatory or evacuation site with >> capacity sufficient for several hundred congress people. Bet they will >> build one now. >> >> >> >> 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 interzone at gmail.com Fri Jan 8 22:16:36 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 17:16:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 1:56 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I am afraid that many countries around the world - their leaders I mean - > are going to see what is happening to our democracy/republic as a result of > free speech. > > There have to be very few countries in the world who would have put up > with what has been happening on social media, what with the fringes, > conspiracy theories, antigovernment rhetoric and all the rest. They would > have suppressed them from the beginning. Many would have gone to jail in > China and some other places. Egypt. > > If we want to keep our free speech we have to get through these challenges > to our beloved system, flawed though it may be. No free speech, no free > country. > I'd be more worried about what the soon to be leaders of the US are going to do about free speech using it as an excuse. It's already being used a Reichstag moment by both the powers that be and their "private" company lackeys. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 01:29:34 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 20:29:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] One word Message-ID: Resist. -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zoielsoy at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 01:36:03 2021 From: zoielsoy at gmail.com (Angel Z. Lopez) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 20:36:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: resist what? On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 8:31 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Resist. > > -- > Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD > Schuyler Biotech PLLC > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 9 01:39:44 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 20:39:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The Reichstag play from our overlords has been set in motion. Your advice is timely and sagacious. On Fri, Jan 8, 2021, 8:30 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Resist. > > -- > Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD > Schuyler Biotech PLLC > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Jan 9 02:06:30 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 18:06:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ohm. On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 5:31 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Resist. > > -- > Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD > Schuyler Biotech PLLC > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 9 02:39:41 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 20:39:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Om mani padmi hum bill w On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 8:08 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Ohm. > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 5:31 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Resist. >> >> -- >> Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD >> Schuyler Biotech PLLC >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Sat Jan 9 02:46:34 2021 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 19:46:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Enh, doesn't affect most of us directly. The local catholic lord is invading the lands of the local protestant lord. Keep your head down and try not to say anything controversial in public about marian doctrine or baptism. On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 7:41 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Om mani padmi hum bill w > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 8:08 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Ohm. >> >> On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 5:31 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Resist. >>> >>> -- >>> Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD >>> Schuyler Biotech PLLC >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 Sat Jan 9 03:03:16 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 21:03:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There's no one more in favor of free speech than liberals. In fact, I would say that historically, free speech dominated liberal thinking. The word does mean 'free' after all. Liberate speech. Thomas Paine. So on the face of it, liberals rule as the Dems control all. We who are liberal on social issues can be conservative on economic issues (Spike big on this one). That's what keeps this liberal from being more liberal (on the tests, anyhow). Are they going to try to get away with massive giveaways, increasing all social programs? Maybe not massive, but substantial. Payback for who elected them. A good bet. Tighten IRS and FDA and EPA? Put some rules back on the books. Sure. I can't see the Dems as trying to force any social changes except discrimination. They certainly aren't going to try to interfere with our sexual lives. They will be pretty liberal on that one: live and let live. Government is not about dictating morals. That's a Repub thing. Undo bad changes and leave well enough alone. Maybe have big committees about election issues. For all that Trump did, we escaped a lot that could have been worse - a lot worse. The very worst of John's nightmares did not come true. Not really close. A lot of people to thank for that. Unless he has something more up his sleeve, he's done. I hope they impeach him and get rid of him permanently and not rely on voters. Voters are fickle. bill w On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 4:19 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 1:56 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I am afraid that many countries around the world - their leaders I mean - >> are going to see what is happening to our democracy/republic as a result of >> free speech. >> >> There have to be very few countries in the world who would have put up >> with what has been happening on social media, what with the fringes, >> conspiracy theories, antigovernment rhetoric and all the rest. They would >> have suppressed them from the beginning. Many would have gone to jail in >> China and some other places. Egypt. >> >> If we want to keep our free speech we have to get through these >> challenges to our beloved system, flawed though it may be. No free speech, >> no free country. >> > > I'd be more worried about what the soon to be leaders of the US are going > to do about free speech using it as an excuse. It's already being used a > Reichstag moment by both the powers that be and their "private" company > lackeys. > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Jan 9 05:21:35 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 21:21:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: That's four words. ;) On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 6:41 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Om mani padmi hum bill w > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 8:08 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Ohm. >> >> On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 5:31 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Resist. >>> >>> -- >>> Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD >>> Schuyler Biotech PLLC >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 9 11:22:14 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 03:22:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008801d6e679$af015620$0d040260$@rainier66.com> Rafal! Good to see you back. We worry about you, working in the hospital and such. spike From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Sent: Friday, January 8, 2021 5:30 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: [ExI] One word Resist. -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sat Jan 9 15:03:55 2021 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2021 07:03:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break Message-ID: <20210109070355.Horde.3gPeQAXvYfRmeUuENDOfRwP@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Here is some interesting data that might cheer up some of those on this list: https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/main-factors-driving-population-growth/pf_15-04-02_ch1graphics_lifeexpectancyreligion310px/ Apparently atheists have a higher life expectancy than any religion except for Jews. Ashkenazi Jews have been noted by medical science for their genetic predisposition to long life but the results for atheists are surprising. After all atheists have no qualms about eating pork or imbibing alcohol or doing drugs. I am not sure what genetic effects might be present there. Might it boil down to relative income? Stuart LaForge From hibbard at wisc.edu Sat Jan 9 15:57:10 2021 From: hibbard at wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 09:57:10 -0600 (CST) Subject: [ExI] free speech Message-ID: Free speech is half of open information. The other half is transparency and accountability by those with power over us. Some people want to limit free speech because of the violent mob of QAnon followers at the US Capitol. Such crazy conspiracy theories thrive because of the rampant corruption among the powerful that can only exist with our current lack of transparency and accountability. There are two paths forward. One is free speech combined with transparency and accountability: https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/human_freedom.html The other path is ever tighter controls on speech and other rights. China is a great example of combining lack of free speech with lack of transparency and accountability. The US has done a terrible job of regulating tech monopolies, which have the power to greatly limit speech. As for example Apple and Google are now requiring all their Apps to limit speech. The US Congress doesn't have to make any law abridging the freedom of speech; it can just farm the job out to the tech monopolies. Just to be clear, mob violence is not the answer to anger at the government. Bill From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 16:35:16 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 10:35:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I remember a free speech case of many years ago involving a college newspaper. The university censored it and the editor sued. The ruling, of course, was that the editor was free to say whatever he wanted to, just not on the university's paper. Google and Facebook are private companies and they can censor all they want to, and I would not take that away from them, or even force them to use disclaimers. We do not need the feds telling private companies what to do unless it's to safeguard something, like food, or children's toys. Crazy, wayout, extremists, and all the rest of the nutcases, have just as much right to free speech as anyone, as the ACLU will tell you. Free means free. Sure, we may pay a price for it, but we would be paying a much bigger price if we didn't have it. bill w On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 10:04 AM Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Free speech is half of open information. The other half > is transparency and accountability by those with power > over us. Some people want to limit free speech because > of the violent mob of QAnon followers at the US Capitol. > Such crazy conspiracy theories thrive because of the > rampant corruption among the powerful that can only > exist with our current lack of transparency and > accountability. > > There are two paths forward. One is free speech combined > with transparency and accountability: > https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/human_freedom.html > > The other path is ever tighter controls on speech and > other rights. China is a great example of combining > lack of free speech with lack of transparency and > accountability. > > The US has done a terrible job of regulating tech > monopolies, which have the power to greatly limit speech. > As for example Apple and Google are now requiring all > their Apps to limit speech. The US Congress doesn't have > to make any law abridging the freedom of speech; it can > just farm the job out to the tech monopolies. > > Just to be clear, mob violence is not the answer to > anger at the government. > > Bill > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Jan 9 17:02:49 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 17:02:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 09/01/2021 15:04, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Here is some interesting data that might cheer up some of those on > this list: > > https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/main-factors-driving-population-growth/pf_15-04-02_ch1graphics_lifeexpectancyreligion310px/ > > > Apparently atheists have a higher life expectancy than any religion > except for Jews. Ashkenazi Jews have been noted by medical science for > their genetic predisposition to long life but the results for atheists > are surprising. After all atheists have no qualms about eating pork or > imbibing alcohol or doing drugs. I am not sure what genetic effects > might be present there. Might it boil down to relative income? > > Stuart LaForge Not sure what the statistics are on relative income for atheists vs. god-squad, but I'd suspect that the beneficial health effects of being able to enjoy oneself without guilt may have something to do with life expectancy. A common theme among religious types is not being able to relax and have fun (especially in the sexual arena) without some kind of psychological or social backlash. Another one is the absence of anxiety about whether or not you're going to be punished for your 'sins' after you die (a sentence that makes no sense whatsoever, but still has power over millions of people). -- Ben Zaiboc From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 17:29:23 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 17:29:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 9 Jan 2021 at 17:04, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote: > > Not sure what the statistics are on relative income for atheists vs. > god-squad, but I'd suspect that the beneficial health effects of being > able to enjoy oneself without guilt may have something to do with life > expectancy. A common theme among religious types is not being able to > relax and have fun (especially in the sexual arena) without some kind of > psychological or social backlash. Another one is the absence of anxiety > about whether or not you're going to be punished for your 'sins' after > you die (a sentence that makes no sense whatsoever, but still has power > over millions of people). > -- > Ben Zaiboc > _______________________________________________ There's a thought - Would a civilisation 100 or 200 years from now punish revived cryonics people for all the 'wrong' things they did and said (wrong by the standards of the future society). Like our society is condemning the behaviour of people from earlier centuries. Consider how would we treat revived slave traders or soldiers who massacred primitive races, or people who supported human sacrifice? Send them to a re-education prison? BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 19:10:21 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 13:10:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The core belief of Protestants is Original Sin. One of the very worst ideas in history, but one that works well for the church. Without it the church has no goal. bill w On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 11:31 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, 9 Jan 2021 at 17:04, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Not sure what the statistics are on relative income for atheists vs. > > god-squad, but I'd suspect that the beneficial health effects of being > > able to enjoy oneself without guilt may have something to do with life > > expectancy. A common theme among religious types is not being able to > > relax and have fun (especially in the sexual arena) without some kind of > > psychological or social backlash. Another one is the absence of anxiety > > about whether or not you're going to be punished for your 'sins' after > > you die (a sentence that makes no sense whatsoever, but still has power > > over millions of people). > > -- > > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > > > There's a thought - Would a civilisation 100 or 200 years from now > punish revived cryonics people for all the 'wrong' things they did and > said (wrong by the standards of the future society). Like our society > is condemning the behaviour of people from earlier centuries. > Consider how would we treat revived slave traders or soldiers who > massacred primitive races, or people who supported human sacrifice? > Send them to a re-education prison? > > > 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 atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 19:17:07 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 11:17:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 9:31 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > There's a thought - Would a civilisation 100 or 200 years from now > punish revived cryonics people for all the 'wrong' things they did and > said (wrong by the standards of the future society). Like our society > is condemning the behaviour of people from earlier centuries. > Consider how would we treat revived slave traders or soldiers who > massacred primitive races, or people who supported human sacrifice? > Send them to a re-education prison? > Flip that around: say you got cryo'd and revived 200 years later. You can be highly confident that society will have changed, in ways you will not have predicted. What do you do, to adjust yourself to fit into that society? Would you ask for reeducation, if it is offered? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 9 22:18:51 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 14:18:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004701d6e6d5$6945c150$3bd143f0$@rainier66.com> >? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Atheists catch a break >?The core belief of Protestants is Original Sin. Bzzzzzt. Well, partial bzzt anyway, because of the way the comment is worded: it makes it sound like the notion is a Protestant thing. I would call that teaching a tragic carryover, toxic baggage from Catholicism. The Christian version of it goes all the way back to St. Augustine, in the 4th century, a thousand years before there was much of anything one could call Protestant. >?One of the very worst ideas in history, but one that works well for the church. Without it the church has no goal. bill w I would agree with that comment. Islam has a robust version of original sin as well. Compared to these two, Protestantism generally has a kinder and gentler version of the notion. The more progressive Protestant churches have recognized the problem and have largely done away with it. One will not hear a rousing hellfire and brimstone sermon in a Presbyterian church. One needs to go over to the Southern Baptists if one wishes to made to feel like a piece of revolting garbage. A practicing Catholic friend was explaining to me how his church uses the concept. They see to it you feel good and goddam guilty for that which you did not do. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 22:24:24 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 16:24:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: <004701d6e6d5$6945c150$3bd143f0$@rainier66.com> References: <004701d6e6d5$6945c150$3bd143f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: A practicing Catholic friend was explaining to me how his church uses the concept. They see to it you feel good and goddam guilty for that which you did not do. spike I read recently that to be a Catholic means living a life of guilt. bill w On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 4:20 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] Atheists catch a break > > > > >?The core belief of Protestants is Original Sin. > > > > Bzzzzzt. > > > > Well, partial bzzt anyway, because of the way the comment is worded: it > makes it sound like the notion is a Protestant thing. I would call that > teaching a tragic carryover, toxic baggage from Catholicism. The Christian > version of it goes all the way back to St. Augustine, in the 4th century, > a thousand years before there was much of anything one could call > Protestant. > > > > >?One of the very worst ideas in history, but one that works well for the > church. Without it the church has no goal. bill w > > > > I would agree with that comment. > > > > Islam has a robust version of original sin as well. Compared to these > two, Protestantism generally has a kinder and gentler version of the > notion. The more progressive Protestant churches have recognized the > problem and have largely done away with it. One will not hear a rousing > hellfire and brimstone sermon in a Presbyterian church. One needs to go > over to the Southern Baptists if one wishes to made to feel like a piece of > revolting garbage. > > > > A practicing Catholic friend was explaining to me how his church uses the > concept. They see to it you feel good and goddam guilty for that which you > did not do. > > > > 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 Jan 9 22:29:50 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 14:29:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006701d6e6d6$f24e83f0$d6eb8bd0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Atheists catch a break On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 9:31 AM BillK via extropy-chat > wrote: Send them to a re-education prison? Flip that around: say you got cryo'd and revived 200 years later. You can be highly confident that society will have changed, in ways you will not have predicted. What do you do, to adjust yourself to fit into that society? Would you ask for reeducation, if it is offered? OF COURSE! You bet I would. I would tell them: HEY COOL! I was an engineer 200 years ago. Please teach me all the cool stuff you guys figured out, starting with what kind of computer am I thinking in, and what did you guys do with the energy problem, and how did you solve the Malthusian population dynamics problem, and how many Mersenne Primes have been discovered, and all that cool stuff. Don?t worry about feeding me your modern ethics: I don?t care about that. What harm can I possibly do you inside this CPU? Just tell me the kind of stuff we would have told Isaac Newton had he come back in our times. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From costajetro at gmail.com Sat Jan 9 23:48:39 2021 From: costajetro at gmail.com (Kick Ass Bitch) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2021 19:48:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Even though they are private companies, they have to fulfill the contracts that require us to accept. Nor do they accept their own contracts! Em s?b, 9 de jan de 2021 12:37, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> escreveu: > I remember a free speech case of many years ago involving a college > newspaper. The university censored it and the editor sued. The ruling, of > course, was that the editor was free to say whatever he wanted to, just not > on the university's paper. > > Google and Facebook are private companies and they can censor all they > want to, and I would not take that away from them, or even force them to > use disclaimers. We do not need the feds telling private companies what to > do unless it's to safeguard something, like food, or children's toys. > > Crazy, wayout, extremists, and all the rest of the nutcases, have just as > much right to free speech as anyone, as the ACLU will tell you. > > Free means free. Sure, we may pay a price for it, but we would be paying > a much bigger price if we didn't have it. > > bill w > > On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 10:04 AM Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Free speech is half of open information. The other half >> is transparency and accountability by those with power >> over us. Some people want to limit free speech because >> of the violent mob of QAnon followers at the US Capitol. >> Such crazy conspiracy theories thrive because of the >> rampant corruption among the powerful that can only >> exist with our current lack of transparency and >> accountability. >> >> There are two paths forward. One is free speech combined >> with transparency and accountability: >> https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/human_freedom.html >> >> The other path is ever tighter controls on speech and >> other rights. China is a great example of combining >> lack of free speech with lack of transparency and >> accountability. >> >> The US has done a terrible job of regulating tech >> monopolies, which have the power to greatly limit speech. >> As for example Apple and Google are now requiring all >> their Apps to limit speech. The US Congress doesn't have >> to make any law abridging the freedom of speech; it can >> just farm the job out to the tech monopolies. >> >> Just to be clear, mob violence is not the answer to >> anger at the government. >> >> Bill >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Sun Jan 10 11:49:05 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 06:49:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: <008801d6e679$af015620$0d040260$@rainier66.com> References: <008801d6e679$af015620$0d040260$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 6:22 AM wrote: > > Rafal! Good to see you back. We worry about you, working in the hospital > and such. > > > ### The on-hold phone message at my hospital says it's "completely safe" to come to the hospital and our hospital has been "voted the safest hospital in the community we serve". Wonder who voted and how much they got paid for it. The lady doth protest too much. I have noticed a few Covid negative inpatients who turned positive after a week or so. I had a couple days' of generalized pain after my second dose of Covid vaccine but otherwise yes, hospitals are pretty safe places, for doctors at least. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 10 12:00:10 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 07:00:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Rocket lander control systems In-Reply-To: References: <006a01d6e21b$d454cd10$7cfe6730$@rainier66.com> <001801d6e237$8ab0ce90$a0126bb0$@rainier66.com> <000701d6e23e$0dacb380$29061a80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 9:14 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, 4 Jan 2021 at 02:07, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Ja I misread the first post, my apologies. > > > > I don't think as big as Elon Musk does. > > > > Guess that's why he's rich and Im not. > > > > That notion of catching the first stage in a net is growing on me. I can > > see something like that working out and possibly having some advantages > > over a feet-first landing: your payload ratio might be better, even at > the > > expense of longer turn-around times. Hard to say: it sounds like an > > interesting portion of the envelope that hasn't been explored. > > > > I wouldn't be surprised if they were working on something like this back > in > > the 1950s and 60s when so much innovative rocket science was taking > place, > > but they didn't really have the control systems in those days which were > up > > to the task. A human-controlled flight into a net is too risky and too > slow > > (humans can't react fast enough to control something that unforgiving.) > I > > think we could do this now however. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > > > As I understand it, he wants it to return like his earlier boosters, > but to land back at the launch tower, standing on the base fins and > using the launch tower arm to hold the rocket in position. > So not really 'catching' it. > > ### He wrote about using the grid fins (not base fins) to catch the booster. Big difference, since grid fins are needed anyway for descent from orbit, so repurposing them for the additional application in landing would be a pure gain in efficiency. He wrote "the best process is no process, the best part is no part". It is indeed brilliant. Would do away with other landing gear altogether and offload the landing gear complexity, such as shock absorbers, and weight from the vehicle (where weight is a huge penalty) to the landing tower (where weight does not matter). Again, brilliant. I remember SpaceX boasting that their grid fins are the largest single piece titanium forgings ever, or something like that. Great thing, forged titanium. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbard at wisc.edu Sun Jan 10 14:20:23 2021 From: hibbard at wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 08:20:23 -0600 (CST) Subject: [ExI] free speech Message-ID: > Google and Facebook are private companies and they can > censor all they want to, and I would not take that away > from them, or even force them to use disclaimers. I am all for freedom too, but the biggest threat to freedom is concentration of power. Information monopolies, and collaboratng duopolies (Apple and Google for Apps) concentrate power. For example, the wires and cell networks carrying Internet traffic are owned by private companies. If all these companies join together and say, "We prohibit any information about extropian ideas, transhumanism, and the future of technology in general." Is that OK? From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 10 14:31:07 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 14:31:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 9 Jan 2021 at 02:48, Darin Sunley via extropy-chat wrote: > > Enh, doesn't affect most of us directly. The local catholic lord is invading the lands of the local protestant lord. Keep your head down and try not to say anything controversial in public about marian doctrine or baptism. > > _______________________________________________ Resistance is futile! We are the Borg! People are leaving Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and were moving to Parler. So Google and Apple removed the Parler APP and then Amazon kicked Parler off AWS, shutting down the Parler servers. Whatsapp users are moving to Signal and Gmail users to Protonmail. So far Signal and Protonmail have not been absorbed by the Borg. We can hope they survive the purge. But this is not a 'left' purge of the 'right'. The 'left' might think it is, but the super-rich that control the press and social media are pulling the strings and using COVID as well to prevent people from gathering or organizing. They admire the Chinese social control systems and heed the motto 'Never let a crisis go to waste'. It will be interesting to find ourselves living through a revolution. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 10 14:36:13 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 06:36:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2021 6:20 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] free speech >> Google and Facebook are private companies and they can censor all they > want to, and I would not take that away from them, or even force them > to use disclaimers. >I am all for freedom too, but the biggest threat to freedom is concentration of power. Information monopolies, and collaboratng duopolies (Apple and Google for Apps) concentrate power. >For example, the wires and cell networks carrying Internet traffic are owned by private companies. If all these companies join together and say, "We prohibit any information about extropian ideas, transhumanism, and the future of technology in general." Is that OK? _______________________________________________ Hi Bill, it is not OK. It is legal. Two different things. Since control of speech in our time is the domain of private business (only) we can imagine businesses that cater to specific memetic structures, filtering out information that would disturb the consumer's comfortable little safe space. Twitter and Face Book among others are already doing that. Note: if a media company censors anything, then it endorses everything it leaves on there. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 10 16:59:40 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 10:59:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> References: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Twitter, Facebook, etc. all exist because they are used. If people get disgusted with them, they will get competition. If enough are disgusted they will ask Congress to do something to regulate that business and likely they will. It's a big, wide, wonderful Web - room for all. We do have laws about monopolies. People will leave Facebook by the millions if it starts banning this and that. They will find alternatives. I see this as a free market problem, which in time solves itself. bill w On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 8:39 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Behalf Of Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat > Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2021 6:20 AM > > Subject: Re: [ExI] free speech > > >> Google and Facebook are private companies and they can censor all they > > want to, and I would not take that away from them, or even force them > > to use disclaimers. > > >I am all for freedom too, but the biggest threat to freedom is > concentration of power. Information monopolies, and collaboratng duopolies > (Apple and Google for Apps) concentrate power. > > >For example, the wires and cell networks carrying Internet traffic are > owned by private companies. If all these companies join together and say, > "We prohibit any information about extropian ideas, transhumanism, and the > future of technology in general." Is that OK? > _______________________________________________ > > > > Hi Bill, it is not OK. It is legal. Two different things. > > Since control of speech in our time is the domain of private business > (only) > we can imagine businesses that cater to specific memetic structures, > filtering out information that would disturb the consumer's comfortable > little safe space. Twitter and Face Book among others are already doing > that. > > Note: if a media company censors anything, then it endorses everything it > leaves on 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 spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 10 17:10:54 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 09:10:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007501d6e773$8f941430$aebc3c90$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] free speech >?Twitter, Facebook, ?. If enough are disgusted they will ask Congress to do something to regulate that business and likely they will. ? We do have laws about monopolies? bill w On the contrary, congress will not and cannot. Twitter and Face Book have big followings, but neither are monopolies: both have competitors. Note that if one of the messaging systems filters anything, then it endorses everything it doesn?t filter. If it filters nothing, then it endorses nothing. Every deplorable, despicable, unethical comment, anything on Face Book or Twitter is now endorsed by those companies. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 10 17:14:30 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 11:14:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: <007501d6e773$8f941430$aebc3c90$@rainier66.com> References: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> <007501d6e773$8f941430$aebc3c90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, why do you say that Congress cannot deal with monopolies. Congress has broken up monopolies before. bill w On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 11:12 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] free speech > > > > >?Twitter, Facebook, ?. If enough are disgusted they will ask Congress > to do something to regulate that business and likely they will. ? We do > have laws about monopolies? bill w > > > > > > On the contrary, congress will not and cannot. Twitter and Face Book have > big followings, but neither are monopolies: both have competitors. > > > > Note that if one of the messaging systems filters anything, then it > endorses everything it doesn?t filter. If it filters nothing, then it > endorses nothing. Every deplorable, despicable, unethical comment, > anything on Face Book or Twitter is now endorsed by those companies. > > > > spike > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 10 17:24:50 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 09:24:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> <007501d6e773$8f941430$aebc3c90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009501d6e775$812e3f90$838abeb0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] free speech >?Spike, why do you say that Congress cannot deal with monopolies. Congress has broken up monopolies before. bill w Congress can deal with monopolies, but neither of the companies you named are monopolies. They don?t own the supply chain, the factories and the distribution, and they have competitors. Congress can do nothing about two companies which have a large following (first to market advantage) if they do things we don?t like. No worries: as you say, the market sorts out everything. Now, any deplorable, despicable anything you find anywhere on Twitter or Face Book is endorsed by those companies. This applies to comments and everything: if they censor anything, they endorse everything not censored. Knowing that, why are you still there? Why is anyone? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 10 17:37:57 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 11:37:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: <009501d6e775$812e3f90$838abeb0$@rainier66.com> References: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> <007501d6e773$8f941430$aebc3c90$@rainier66.com> <009501d6e775$812e3f90$838abeb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Why am I still there? Well, I am not, mostly. Not at all on Twitter. Reluctantly on Facebook, which I still don't know how to operate, and am only there because of relatives. I hate it. I do not know how to access anything but my page, so I don't know about Facebook news, etc. bill w On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 11:26 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] free speech > > > > >?Spike, why do you say that Congress cannot deal with monopolies. > Congress has broken up monopolies before. bill w > > > > > > Congress can deal with monopolies, but neither of the companies you named > are monopolies. They don?t own the supply chain, the factories and the > distribution, and they have competitors. Congress can do nothing about two > companies which have a large following (first to market advantage) if they > do things we don?t like. > > > > No worries: as you say, the market sorts out everything. Now, any > deplorable, despicable anything you find anywhere on Twitter or Face Book > is endorsed by those companies. This applies to comments and everything: > if they censor anything, they endorse everything not censored. > > > > Knowing that, why are you still there? Why is anyone? > > > > 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 Sun Jan 10 19:08:56 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 19:08:56 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6f52f776-5189-e838-db09-3dcf64a229db@zaiboc.net> On 10/01/2021 14:22, Bill w wrote: > The core belief of Protestants is Original Sin.? One of the very worst > ideas in history, but one that works well for the church.? Without it > the church has no goal.? ?bill w It's the catholic church that's to blame, not the protestant one (not that it makes much difference, they still adhere to it, but they didn't invent it). I go further than 'one of the worst', and say it's probably the most evil idea ever invented. Combined with the concept of hell, you have a perfect tool to terrorise and control not just people's behaviour, but their very thoughts. -- Ben Zaiboc From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 10 19:22:34 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 11:22:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: <6f52f776-5189-e838-db09-3dcf64a229db@zaiboc.net> References: <6f52f776-5189-e838-db09-3dcf64a229db@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <00d201d6e785$f37b0280$da710780$@rainier66.com> >...> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Atheists catch a break On 10/01/2021 14:22, Bill w wrote: > The core belief of Protestants is Original Sin.? One of the very worst > ideas in history, but one that works well for the church.? Without it > the church has no goal.? ?bill w >...It's the catholic church that's to blame, not the protestant one (not that it makes much difference, they still adhere to it, but they didn't invent it). >...I go further than 'one of the worst', and say it's probably the most evil idea ever invented. Combined with the concept of hell, you have a perfect tool to terrorise and control not just people's behaviour, but their very thoughts. -- Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ Hi Ben, I would put the notion of Original Sin and the concept of hell tied for second worst, with gold medal for worst idea in history going to communism. spike From interzone at gmail.com Sun Jan 10 20:02:13 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 15:02:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 9:33 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Resistance is futile! We are the Borg! > > People are leaving Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and were moving to > Parler. So Google and Apple removed the Parler APP and then Amazon > kicked Parler off AWS, shutting down the Parler servers. > Whatsapp users are moving to Signal and Gmail users to Protonmail. So > far Signal and Protonmail have not been absorbed by the Borg. We can > hope they survive the purge. > But this is not a 'left' purge of the 'right'. The 'left' might think > it is, but the super-rich that control the press and social media are > pulling the strings and using COVID as well to prevent people from > gathering or organizing. They admire the Chinese social control > systems and heed the motto 'Never let a crisis go to waste'. > It will be interesting to find ourselves living through a revolution. > > > +Infinity. Glad to see someone else here sees exactly what is happening right now. I realize the irony that I am sending this from a gmail account but I am in the process of deplatforming to Proton Mail. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 10 21:09:56 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 15:09:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: <00d201d6e785$f37b0280$da710780$@rainier66.com> References: <6f52f776-5189-e838-db09-3dcf64a229db@zaiboc.net> <00d201d6e785$f37b0280$da710780$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I would put the notion of Original Sin and the concept of hell tied for second worst, with gold medal for worst idea in history going to communism spike This reminds me of Freud. He said that there was no idea more wrong, more out of touch with what humans are really like than 'love your enemies'. In communism we have a great idea: from each according to their abilities, and to each according to their needs. If only that could be done. In fact, I don't see why it cannot be done. We do provide help to needful people and we do try to ensure that a person's talents are used in our society. I do see that it cannot be done with the version of communism that is extant. That assumes that people will give up the idea of personal property, and that is about as far from what humans are like as 'love your enemies'. bill w On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 1:24 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >...> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] Atheists catch a break > > On 10/01/2021 14:22, Bill w wrote: > > The core belief of Protestants is Original Sin. One of the very worst > > ideas in history, but one that works well for the church. Without it > > the church has no goal. bill w > > >...It's the catholic church that's to blame, not the protestant one (not > that it makes much difference, they still adhere to it, but they didn't > invent it). > > >...I go further than 'one of the worst', and say it's probably the most > evil idea ever invented. Combined with the concept of hell, you have a > perfect tool to terrorise and control not just people's behaviour, but > their > very thoughts. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > > Hi Ben, I would put the notion of Original Sin and the concept of hell tied > for second worst, with gold medal for worst idea in history going to > communism. > > 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 Jan 10 21:40:46 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 13:40:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: <6f52f776-5189-e838-db09-3dcf64a229db@zaiboc.net> <00d201d6e785$f37b0280$da710780$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00ee01d6e799$41ecf870$c5c6e950$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Atheists catch a break I would put the notion of Original Sin and the concept of hell tied for second worst, with gold medal for worst idea in history going to communism spike >? In communism we have a great idea: from each according to their abilities, and to each according to their needs? With the stimulus package currently being considered in the USA, it isn?t so much communism-lite as it is communism-weird: from each according to their abilities, to each according to their having a pulse. >? If only that could be done. In fact, I don't see why it cannot be done? It can be, and is. But it can only be done if it is completely voluntary. As soon as there is legal compulsion, that system fails. >? That assumes that people will give up the idea of personal property, and that is about as far from what humans are like as 'love your enemies'. Bill w Ja. When people voluntarily give up personal property, then they are free to give away everything. Until then, not. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 10 21:23:32 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 13:23:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> References: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <500021f9-a34b-db23-6131-e16ad1b066ef@pobox.com> On 2021-1-10 06:36, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > Note: if a media company censors anything, > then it endorses everything it leaves on there. The much-maligned ?230 was written to defeat that very inference. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 10 22:46:55 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 14:46:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: <500021f9-a34b-db23-6131-e16ad1b066ef@pobox.com> References: <004101d6e75d$f2818e80$d784ab80$@rainier66.com> <500021f9-a34b-db23-6131-e16ad1b066ef@pobox.com> Message-ID: <000201d6e7a2$7f9cf7c0$7ed6e740$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] free speech On 2021-1-10 06:36, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > Note: if a media company censors anything, > then it endorses everything it leaves on there. The much-maligned ?230 was written to defeat that very inference. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org _______________________________________________ Cool, a much-maligned ?230 hipster. Not you being much maligned Anton, I meant ?230. Please sir, can you explain from an extropian POV why ?230 is much-maligned, why, who likes it, who doesn't, and so forth. I have heard contradictory comments on that topic and I still don't understand it. Educate me por favor. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 11 00:20:29 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 18:20:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: <00ee01d6e799$41ecf870$c5c6e950$@rainier66.com> References: <6f52f776-5189-e838-db09-3dcf64a229db@zaiboc.net> <00d201d6e785$f37b0280$da710780$@rainier66.com> <00ee01d6e799$41ecf870$c5c6e950$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: It can be, and is. But it can only be done if it is completely voluntary. As soon as there is legal compulsion, that system fails. spike Oh? Where is it done? bill w On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 3:42 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] Atheists catch a break > > > > I would put the notion of Original Sin and the concept of hell tied > for second worst, with gold medal for worst idea in history going to > communism spike > > > > >? In communism we have a great idea: from each according to their > abilities, and to each according to their needs? > > > > With the stimulus package currently being considered in the USA, it isn?t > so much communism-lite as it is communism-weird: from each according to > their abilities, to each according to their having a pulse. > > > > > > > > >? If only that could be done. In fact, I don't see why it cannot be > done? > > > > It can be, and is. But it can only be done if it is completely > voluntary. As soon as there is legal compulsion, that system fails. > > > > >? That assumes that people will give up the idea of personal property, > and that is about as far from what humans are like as 'love your enemies'. > Bill w > > > > Ja. When people voluntarily give up personal property, then they are free > to give away everything. Until then, not. > > > > 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 Mon Jan 11 01:25:36 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 17:25:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: <6f52f776-5189-e838-db09-3dcf64a229db@zaiboc.net> <00d201d6e785$f37b0280$da710780$@rainier66.com> <00ee01d6e799$41ecf870$c5c6e950$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001201d6e7b8$aa3d2160$feb76420$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Atheists catch a break >>?It can be, and is. But it can only be done if it is completely voluntary. As soon as there is legal compulsion, that system fails. spike >?Oh? Where is it done? bill w Some fundamentalist churches, such as LDS. They do a good job of taking care of their poor, and they durn sure do lean on the ones who are able. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 11 17:39:48 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:39:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: <00d201d6e785$f37b0280$da710780$@rainier66.com> References: <6f52f776-5189-e838-db09-3dcf64a229db@zaiboc.net> <00d201d6e785$f37b0280$da710780$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 10 Jan 2021 at 19:24, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Hi Ben, I would put the notion of Original Sin and the concept of hell tied > for second worst, with gold medal for worst idea in history going to > communism. > > spike > _______________________________________________ Very apt comic today,,,,,,,,,,,,, :) BillK From avant at sollegro.com Tue Jan 12 02:29:11 2021 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 18:29:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election Message-ID: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> This last U.S. election has been extraordinarily stressful for me. In large part because a sizable percentage of people keep insisting, based on an anecdotal evidence and a bunch of hearsay, that the election was fraudulent and stolen. While I agree with the U.S. Justice Department and state and local governments that there was no evidence of WIDESPREAD fraud, there was clearly one video that could be construed as evidence of small-scale fraud although it is entirely uncertain which candidate the fraud benefited. As such, the only clear remedy to prevent this sort of debacle in the future, is to design our elections to be so secure as to be above reproach. The problem is the black-box nature and security flaws inherent in voting machines makes it so that every election that has ever used them has engendered at least some people crying foul. I have read and heard many software engineers warning of the ease of hacking voting machines and voting software in general. Of course, the rise of cryptocurrency has held out hope to me that blockchain technology could be used to ensure security of elections and I have been thus far been an enthusiastic proponent of such. Unfortunately this article by some eggheads at MIT have thrown a wet blanket on the proposal to use blockchain cyphertechnology and zero-knowledge proof to guarantee honest and auditable election results: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/PSNR20.pdf If one does not want to read the whole article, it is quite nicely summarized by this installment of xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2030/ The authors of the paper contend that no electronic voting system is as trustworthy as paper ballots. One of their biggest objections to blockchain is that being able to offer proof of ones vote will lead to coercion and the buying and selling of votes which the secret ballot was meant to prevent. That being said, one must wonder whether, with the billions spent on influencing voters currently through propaganda and such, if the possibility of voluntarily selling ones vote is such a horrible development especially considering the attempted insurrection in the Capitol last week. Which brings up another point. If voting machines are universally distrusted and despised, then why do we still use them? Why do companies still make them? If distrust of voting machines are causing massive protests that lead to injury, loss of life, and destruction of property and historic artifacts, then should not the manufacturers of voting machines be held liable for the damages? Putting these companies on the hook for the damage done seems a great deterrent to keep companies from trying to sell governments voting machines that nobody trusts. It would make it so that any kind of voting software would have to be developed open source since no company would be willing to take on the liability. Which actually makes a lot of sense to me because the entire notion of representative democracy is on the line and so the stakes could hardly be higher. I don't see how the Republic can continue to survive if we can't restore people's trust in our elections. Because as noted by James Madison in the Federalist Papers, without trust in one another and our institutions, despotism is the only way to prevent violence: "As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another." Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 02:39:23 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 20:39:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] cool! Message-ID: *(from Premium True) Message in a Bottle ? 21st Century Remix:* Four adults and a 6-month-old baby had driven to see the Blencoe Falls in Queensland, Australia. ?Coming back down, only about 20 kilometers [12.4 miles] from the bottom,? said State Emergency Service area controller James Gegg, ?they crossed one of the many creeks and unfortunately swamped the car.? Stranded, the man tried to call for help, but had no signal. But he did have a drone. He typed an SOS text message, attached the phone to the drone, and sent it up. ?When he brought [the drone] back down he confirmed the message had been sent, so he did get reception,? Gegg said. ?That raised the alarm.? The rescue highlighted the need to plan ahead. ?We highly recommend people going into remote areas to purchase a personal locator beacon,? Gegg said. ?They?re fairly inexpensive and they can get an emergency alert out very quickly with your exact GPS location.? (MS/ABC Australia) *...It may be quicker, but it?s not nearly as cool.* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 03:15:00 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 19:15:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <00d601d6e891$1d9da160$58d8e420$@rainier66.com> >...> On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election >... a sizable percentage of people keep insisting, based on an anecdotal evidence and a bunch of hearsay, that the election was fraudulent and stolen. While I agree with the U.S. Justice Department and state and local governments that there was no evidence of WIDESPREAD fraud... Indeed? How widespread is necessary to cause the appearance of impropriety? How widespread do we wish to tolerate? Note that one congressional seat was decided by less than a dozen votes and another one still isn't decided. So how widespread shall we tolerate? Why do we tolerate any-spread voting fraud? We have the means to make a trustworthy verifiable election. >...there was clearly one video that could be construed as evidence of small-scale fraud... Indeed? How small? >... The problem is the black-box nature and security flaws inherent in voting machines makes it so that every election that has ever used them has engendered at least some people crying foul... And yet, we still have the wretched contraptions. Why do we still have them? Do we need them? Why do we still need them? Without voting machines, we will not know who won the election that night. With voting machines we will not know who won the election ever. >... I have read and heard many software engineers warning of the ease of hacking voting machines and voting software in general... Please how long are we going to tickle the tail of this venomous dragon? Can anyone here offer a good reason (other than corruption) that we really need voting machines at all? https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/PSNR20.pdf Cool thanks for the links Stuart. Very informative. >...If one does not want to read the whole article, it is quite nicely summarized by this installment of xkcd: ... https://xkcd.com/2030/ >...The authors of the paper contend that no electronic voting system is as trustworthy as paper ballots. I agree. So why should we opt for a less trustworthy system? Well, other than the obvious reason, is there any other justification for them? >... One of their biggest objections to blockchain is that being able to offer proof of ones vote will lead to coercion and the buying and selling of votes... Stuart that ship has sailed. The most populous state in the union legalized vote harvesting. This allows people to sell their signed ballots. Elections are already for sale. Big money interests can already buy elections. Now a second state has legalized vote harvesting. People with political power now have a debt to repay. >... the possibility of voluntarily selling ones vote is such a horrible development especially considering the attempted insurrection in the Capitol last week... There are two ways to go with that. Since there is no way to stop people from selling signed ballots, there is no point in having laws to prevent it. Alternatively: if we had fair and trustworthy elections, there would not have been an attempted insurrection. If we put systems in place to make elections trustworthy, we can prevent all manner of unpleasantness in the future. >...Which brings up another point. If voting machines are universally distrusted and despised, then why do we still use them? Other than the obvious answer, I am stumped. >... If distrust of voting machines are causing massive protests that lead to injury, loss of life, and destruction of property and historic artifacts, then should not the manufacturers of voting machines be held liable for the damages? No. The liability is on the governments which choose to use them. >...Putting these companies on the hook for the damage done seems a great deterrent to keep companies from trying to sell governments voting machines that nobody trusts... Anything that has a buyer has a seller. Governments know what is at stake. >.... I don't see how the Republic can continue to survive if we can't restore people's trust in our elections... Agreed sir, and well said. - The steps are easy: eliminate all voting machines forever. - Never let ballots be out of sight of multiple witnesses. - End vote harvesting (in accordance with the previous comment.) - Place digital images of signatures beside a digital image of the registration in the public domain. - Publish lists of registered voters (so that volunteers may verify the addresses exist.) - Double count the ballots, by groups of volunteers, and if the numbers by two independent groups disagree, count a third, fourth and fifth time if necessary. >...despotism is the only way to prevent violence... Stuart LaForge Ja, but there are alternatives to violence to prevent despotism. Sure, if we do the steps outlined above, we won't know who won the election that night. But we will eventually know for sure. We can know fairly quickly, within days: in the future there will be armies of volunteers available to count ballots, teeming hordes, faceless masses. I will eagerly and cheerfully join them (even if I am the only one there with an actual face (oh that would be so creepy.)) Americans realize now what is at stake. We will chip in and help count those ballots, quickly and accurately, by hand. Stuart, this can be fixed. It isn't even hard to do. It remains to be seen if the necessary changes will be made, and if not, who is blocking them. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 03:45:12 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 22:45:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 9:30 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Which brings up another point. If voting machines are universally > distrusted and despised, then why do we still use them? Why do > companies still make them? If distrust of voting machines are causing > massive protests that lead to injury, loss of life, and destruction of > property and historic artifacts, then should not the manufacturers of > voting machines be held liable for the damages? Putting these > companies on the hook for the damage done seems a great deterrent to > keep companies from trying to sell governments voting machines that > nobody trusts. > > It would make it so that any kind of voting software would have to be > developed open source since no company would be willing to take on the > liability. Which actually makes a lot of sense to me because the > entire notion of representative democracy is on the line and so the > stakes could hardly be higher. I don't see how the Republic can > continue to survive if we can't restore people's trust in our elections. > > Cui bono? That's where the explanation lies as to why we still use them, as well as why no transparency was provided around this election to assuage concerns over fraud. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 04:08:36 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 20:08:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <001601d6e898$9aa5d2c0$cff17840$@rainier66.com> >?> On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 9:30 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat > wrote: >>? I don't see how the Republic can continue to survive if we can't restore people's trust in our elections? Stuart >?Cui bono? That's where the explanation lies as to why we still use them, as well as why no transparency was provided around this election to assuage concerns over fraud? Dylan Note how the tech companies reacted. Twitter squelched comments pointing out that the election was suspicious. Parler boomed with simply offering to let people express their views without being censored. Apple responded by squelching Parler. Good chance every person here over about 45 years already knows exactly what this image is: That advertisement stirred my emotions more than any other in my entire long life. It is ironic indeed that given the origin of this image, Apple would participate in making it difficult to communicate freely. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 8198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From interzone at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 04:15:06 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 23:15:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <001601d6e898$9aa5d2c0$cff17840$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001601d6e898$9aa5d2c0$cff17840$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, great minds sadly think alike. I sent that full video to another list I'm on with the subject line "This hasn't aged well...' The destruction of Parler was a concerted effort between Apple, Google,, Amazon., and the powers that be.. We are being governed by a tech oligarchy that allows the First Amendment to be thrown out the window since they're private companies. On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 11:09 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *>?*> *On Behalf Of *Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election > > > > On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 9:30 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > >>? I don't see how the Republic can > continue to survive if we can't restore people's trust in our elections? > Stuart > > > > >?Cui bono? That's where the explanation lies as to why we still use > them, as well as why no transparency was provided around this election to > assuage concerns over fraud? Dylan > > > > Note how the tech companies reacted. Twitter squelched comments pointing > out that the election was suspicious. Parler boomed with simply offering > to let people express their views without being censored. Apple responded > by squelching Parler. > > > > Good chance every person here over about 45 years already knows exactly > what this image is: > > > > > > > > That advertisement stirred my emotions more than any other in my entire > long life. > > > > It is ironic indeed that given the origin of this image, Apple would > participate in making it difficult to communicate freely. > > > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 8198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 04:27:14 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 20:27:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001601d6e898$9aa5d2c0$cff17840$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001001d6e89b$34c99790$9e5cc6b0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election ? >?The destruction of Parler was a concerted effort between Apple, Google,, Amazon., and the powers that be? Dylan Dylan I heard that Google had officially dropped ?Don?t be evil? from its corporate code of conduct. I had not heard that it had adopted the new ?Be evil? however. I anticipate formal adoption of the current policy soon. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 8198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 04:29:10 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 20:29:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <001001d6e89b$34c99790$9e5cc6b0$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001601d6e898$9aa5d2c0$cff17840$@rainier66.com> <001001d6e89b$34c99790$9e5cc6b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001801d6e89b$79de8750$6d9b95f0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] Immaculate Election > On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election ? >?The destruction of Parler was a concerted effort between Apple, Google,, Amazon., and the powers that be? Dylan I don?t think these tech biggies get it. By taking away the voices of dissent, they aren?t reducing societal conflict, they increase it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 8198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 05:40:16 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 21:40:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i have learned so little Message-ID: <000601d6e8a5$689dfac0$39d9f040$@rainier66.com> It is tragic really: I have learned so little about virus transmission over the past 10 months, it is nearly indistinguishable from zero. Right when covid really got going, I felt it was a bad idea to enforce lockdowns, for several reasons: it causes other problems, big ones, financial, mental health, physical health and so on, but not only that. It appears to me, and did last February, that indoor transmission was waaaay the hell more likely than outdoor, because exhaled droplets hang in the indoor air, whereas outdoors they blow on away for the most part. So in some ways, being trapped indoors is riskier than going about one's business, particularly if that business is largely outdoors. Now the governor of New York is saying stuff that sounds a lot like this: businesses hafta do business. Owww, damn, I learned nothing. My own biases have been confirmed, even though I struggled to overpower my own confirmation bias. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Tue Jan 12 05:47:35 2021 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 21:47:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Spike: > Stuart, this can be fixed. It isn't even hard to do. It remains to be seen > if the necessary changes will be made, and if not, who is blocking them. > > spike I think a class-action lawsuit against Diebold et al on behalf of the American people would do wonders to bring this issue to the attention of the American public even if it gets thrown out of court. It would at least distract people from the strange message that the competing narratives have in common, and that is that conservatives and liberals are supposed to hate one another so much as to cause all political discourse devolve to shouting and name calling. Followed soon after with a closure of communication channels. The political parties are blaming one another for fraud due to mistrust caused by the voting machines even in the absence of any evidence of fraud. That is a design flaw inherent in the machines and shows negligence on the part of the developers. Whereas any actual fraud would be apt to use backdoors or zero day exploits that would most likely be known to the developers and vendors, again making them liable. Plus suing the developers and vendors of the machines themselves might flush out any other culprits based on who moves to block. Stuart LaForge From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 05:52:07 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 21:52:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i have learned so little In-Reply-To: <000601d6e8a5$689dfac0$39d9f040$@rainier66.com> References: <000601d6e8a5$689dfac0$39d9f040$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000401d6e8a7$1040e840$30c2b8c0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com . >.Owww, damn, I learned nothing. My own biases have been confirmed, even though I struggled to overpower my own confirmation bias. spike Then it occurred to me: I have an advantage on that insight. We have a lot of Asian friends around here, some of whom eat durian. We went over next door to discuss neighborhood matters. The smell nearly knocked me to my knees (oh mercy.) I didn't go in, nor did I invite her into my house smelling like that. She figured out what was up, suggested we talk outside. Once in the great outdoors, we spoke for about 10 minutes. Outdoors, no problem: I could scarcely smell that vile substance, an odor so foul, one must make a conscious decision whether to inhale the wretched fumes or just suffocate and be done with it all forever. Perhaps others are not so lucky as to have friends who are durian devourers, so they might lack the insight provided by that breathtaking experience. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 05:59:42 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 21:59:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <000b01d6e8a8$1f665c00$5e331400$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election Quoting Spike: > Stuart, this can be fixed. It isn't even hard to do. It remains to > be seen if the necessary changes will be made, and if not, who is blocking them. > > spike >...I think a class-action lawsuit against Diebold et al on behalf of the American people would do wonders ... >...Whereas any actual fraud would be apt to use backdoors or zero day exploits that would most likely be known to the developers and vendors, again making them liable. Plus suing the developers and vendors of the machines themselves might flush out any other culprits based on who moves to block. >...Stuart LaForge Thanks for that Stuart, but I must emphatically disagree. Regardless of how reliable these machines are, absolutely regardless, they create the appearance of impropriety. That in itself is bad enough, but the plain fact is we do not need these machines. We don't need em at all. We pay a terrible price for having them, but the advantages are elusive. We can have voting machines that do nothing but print out paper ballots, with no internet connection, no counting mechanism, none of that, it is just a sophisticated printer full stop. Without voting machines we will not know who won the election that night. With voting machines we will not know who won the election ever. spike From fortean1 at mindspring.com Tue Jan 12 09:14:41 2021 From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:14:41 +0700 (GMT+07:00) Subject: [ExI] Fw: Re: Adobe Flash Player is no more Message-ID: <1209054488.88.1610442881629@wamui-bison.atl.sa.earthlink.net> This software went away when the software did its' kill switch routine on the 1st. I use two gadgets/widgets at my ighome.com personalized homepage that stopped working. These are Accuweather and Simple Calendar. I also store Bookmarks on the internal pop-up which I use to quickly go to and/or restore hosed links. Google Chrome OS has a 'Pepper Flash' that allows Accuweather and the Simple Calendar to display. That should be good for another two years. This is just FYI. Terry . . . -----Forwarded Message----- >From: "James H.G. Redekop" <> >Sent: Jan 11, 2021 12:38 PM >To: David Vincent <> >Cc: Skeptic List >Subject: Re: [skeptic] Adobe Flash Player is no more > >Flash Veteran Mr. Weebl (most famous for Badger Badger Badger) has >released this tribute to Flash, with tributes to many of the most >famous/infamous Flash animations over the years: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBPH6O68UY4 > >_______________________________________________ >skeptic mailing list >skeptic at linuxmafia.com >http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic >To reach the listadmin, mail rick at linuxmafia.com From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 13:20:23 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 08:20:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 9:31 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > As such, the only clear remedy to prevent this sort of debacle in the > future, is to design our elections to be so secure as to be above > reproach. No large, complex system is ever perfect. And even if we had a perfect voting system, we'd still be subject to bogus conspiracy theories. > Which brings up another point. If voting machines are universally > distrusted and despised, They're not. They're not perfect, but they generally get the job done. > then why do we still use them? Why do > companies still make them? If distrust of voting machines are causing > massive protests that lead to injury, loss of life, and destruction of > property and historic artifacts, The cause of riot wasn't distrust in voting machines, it was an unhinged, egomaniacal scam artist pushing unbacked claims of voting fraud. That could still happen without voting machines. > then should not the manufacturers of > voting machines be held liable for the damages? Based on unproven allegations? Of course not. > Putting these > companies on the hook for the damage done seems a great deterrent to > keep companies from trying to sell governments voting machines that > nobody trusts. > If "nobody" trusts the machines, they should take that up with the people buying them with their money. It would make it so that any kind of voting software would have to be > developed open source Imagine what could be accomplished by an open source hardware/software voting platform with a few million dollars of public funding. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 15:20:22 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 07:20:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fw: Re: Adobe Flash Player is no more In-Reply-To: <1209054488.88.1610442881629@wamui-bison.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <1209054488.88.1610442881629@wamui-bison.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: It's well after the 1st, and I'm still getting the warning about Flash going away after December 2020. Flash still works when I try it. On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 2:00 AM Terry W. Colvin via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > This software went away when the software did its' kill switch routine > on the 1st. I use two gadgets/widgets at my ighome.com personalized > homepage that stopped working. These are Accuweather and Simple Calendar. > I also store Bookmarks on the internal pop-up which I use to quickly go > to and/or restore hosed links. > > Google Chrome OS has a 'Pepper Flash' that allows Accuweather and the > Simple Calendar to display. That should be good for another two years. > > This is just FYI. > > Terry > . > . > . > > > -----Forwarded Message----- > >From: "James H.G. Redekop" <> > >Sent: Jan 11, 2021 12:38 PM > >To: David Vincent <> > >Cc: Skeptic List > >Subject: Re: [skeptic] Adobe Flash Player is no more > > > >Flash Veteran Mr. Weebl (most famous for Badger Badger Badger) has > >released this tribute to Flash, with tributes to many of the most > >famous/infamous Flash animations over the years: > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBPH6O68UY4 > > > >_______________________________________________ > >skeptic mailing list > >skeptic at linuxmafia.com > >http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic > >To reach the listadmin, mail rick at linuxmafia.com > _______________________________________________ > 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 Tue Jan 12 15:31:14 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 15:31:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Fw: Re: Adobe Flash Player is no more In-Reply-To: References: <1209054488.88.1610442881629@wamui-bison.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Today's the day! Adobe Flash Player EOL General Information Page Since Adobe will no longer be supporting Flash Player after December 31, 2020 and Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021, Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems. BillK On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 at 15:23, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > It's well after the 1st, and I'm still getting the warning about Flash going away after December 2020. Flash still works when I try it. > > On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 2:00 AM Terry W. Colvin via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> This software went away when the software did its' kill switch routine >> on the 1st. I use two gadgets/widgets at my ighome.com personalized >> homepage that stopped working. These are Accuweather and Simple Calendar. >> I also store Bookmarks on the internal pop-up which I use to quickly go >> to and/or restore hosed links. >> >> Google Chrome OS has a 'Pepper Flash' that allows Accuweather and the >> Simple Calendar to display. That should be good for another two years. >> >> This is just FYI. >> >> Terry >> . >> . >> . >> >> >> -----Forwarded Message----- >> >From: "James H.G. Redekop" <> >> >Sent: Jan 11, 2021 12:38 PM >> >To: David Vincent <> >> >Cc: Skeptic List >> >Subject: Re: [skeptic] Adobe Flash Player is no more >> > >> >Flash Veteran Mr. Weebl (most famous for Badger Badger Badger) has >> >released this tribute to Flash, with tributes to many of the most >> >famous/infamous Flash animations over the years: >> > >> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBPH6O68UY4 >> > >> >_______________________________________________ >> >skeptic mailing list >> >skeptic at linuxmafia.com >> >http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic >> >To reach the listadmin, mail rick at linuxmafia.com >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 16:53:59 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 09:53:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: Wait, what? Dave Sill said: ?No large, complex system is ever perfect. And even if we had a perfect voting system, we'd still be subject to bogus conspiracy theories.? Which is exactly the point. Making a system so bullet proof, it can?t fail, faces the problem of diminishing returns for increased expense, never achieving perfection without infinite cost. The solution is redundancy ? lots of cheap systems, so if any one or two fail, the rest of the system keeps on working. The internet works the same bottom-up way. Censoring is just viewed as failure, and routes around it. Just like diversity of opinion (anti group think) is a good thing, Conspiracy theories are also good. The easy path is to go along with the ?group think?, it takes real effort to pursue highly unlikely, yet still real possibilities. And revolutions always start with that one brilliant first person to recognize a new way. So, you must provide a system with lots of tools (like the sledgehammer tool in Spike?s Apple Video) to encourage things like this. Censoring anyone is only addressing the symptoms, which has the opposite effect of giving power to the underlying issue. If you censor anyone, that just cause people to switch to (or build if necessary) a different system to rout around that failure. That is a good thing. All censoring is a hierarchical / authoritarian action. Playing the game of warring hierarchies is always a win lose game. We need to flip this upside down, to the win/win bottom-up system. Instead of a win/lose, bottom-up system, have the goal of finding out, and getting everyone all that they want. Wherever there is a will, someone will find a way. This is the core of the issue we face today. And censoring conspiracy theories just polarizes everyone into warring hierarchies. You need a bottom-up system that values all voices, with no censoring, like Canonizer.com, which can address the core issue (giving everyone a voice) and bringing everyone back together to play a win / win game. In addition to redundancy, lots of cheap, replaceable systems, you simply want to give everyone a voice. Instead of the establishment dictating what is and isn?t censored (what the guy at the top wants), you give all individuals the choice to decide that, personally. If someone is willing to pursue a conspiracy theory, anyone willing to pay that price should be highly valued. You give them the ability to create their own, anti establishment competing camp. It is up to them to describe their claims, which should be falsifiable, for them. Then you support them, performing the experiments they are suggesting, and only when they are convinced that the group consensus is right, and they communicate this to everyone by jumping from their then falsified, for them camp, to the group consensus theory, problem solved. Again, that is how canonizer is designed to work. Here is a table from that MIT paper posted by Stuart: [image: image.png] This table is completely backwards. The paper ballots are the ones that are not "Voter-verifiable", simply because that is too inefficient. No one voter can count all the paper ballots. And anyone claiming that blockchain voting isn?t verifiable doesn?t understand blockchain. Anyone, and their dog, can get a copy of the blockchain ledger of all votes. Anyone and their dog can pick their preferred open-source verification code to verify their copy of the ledger. Blockchain voting is the only one that should be green, in such a table. On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 6:22 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 9:31 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> As such, the only clear remedy to prevent this sort of debacle in the >> future, is to design our elections to be so secure as to be above >> reproach. > > > No large, complex system is ever perfect. And even if we had a perfect > voting system, we'd still be subject to bogus conspiracy theories. > > >> Which brings up another point. If voting machines are universally >> distrusted and despised, > > > They're not. They're not perfect, but they generally get the job done. > > >> then why do we still use them? Why do >> companies still make them? If distrust of voting machines are causing >> massive protests that lead to injury, loss of life, and destruction of >> property and historic artifacts, > > > The cause of riot wasn't distrust in voting machines, it was an unhinged, > egomaniacal scam artist pushing unbacked claims of voting fraud. That could > still happen without voting machines. > > >> then should not the manufacturers of >> voting machines be held liable for the damages? > > > Based on unproven allegations? Of course not. > > >> Putting these >> companies on the hook for the damage done seems a great deterrent to >> keep companies from trying to sell governments voting machines that >> nobody trusts. >> > > If "nobody" trusts the machines, they should take that up with the people > buying them with their money. > > It would make it so that any kind of voting software would have to be >> developed open source > > > Imagine what could be accomplished by an open source hardware/software > voting platform with a few million dollars of public funding. > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 32994 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 18:37:15 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 12:37:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] dna and privacy Message-ID: ?And now your AncestryDNA results can play a unique mix of music, inspired by your origins,? announced Spotify in 2018, offering to tailor playlists. https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2021/01/12/marketers-are-beginning-to-use-data-mined-from-consumer-dna-tests-should-we-be-worried/ ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 18:44:48 2021 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 11:44:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] dna and privacy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The phrase "Why? Why would you /ever/..." comes vividly to mind. On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 11:39 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > ?And now your AncestryDNA results can play a unique mix of music, inspired > by your origins,? announced Spotify > in > 2018, offering to tailor playlists. > > > https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2021/01/12/marketers-are-beginning-to-use-data-mined-from-consumer-dna-tests-should-we-be-worried/ > ? > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Tue Jan 12 19:23:11 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 14:23:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 12:49 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I think a class-action lawsuit against Diebold et al on behalf of the > American people would do wonders to bring this issue to the attention > of the American public even if it gets thrown out of court. It would > at least distract people from the strange message that the competing > narratives have in common, and that is that conservatives and liberals > are supposed to hate one another so much as to cause all political > discourse devolve to shouting and name calling. Followed soon after > with a closure of communication channels. The political parties are > blaming one another for fraud due to mistrust caused by the voting > machines even in the absence of any evidence of fraud. That is a > design flaw inherent in the machines and shows negligence on the part > of the developers. > The voting machines aren't the problem. The current rage-addicted divisive political environment is the problem. Whereas any actual fraud would be apt to use backdoors or zero day > exploits that would most likely be known to the developers and > vendors, again making them liable. Vendors don't know about zero-day vulnerabilities or they'd fix them. They may know about back doors. > Plus suing the developers and > vendors of the machines themselves might flush out any other culprits > based on who moves to block. > Suing them for what, exactly? Having bugs isn't illegal. Not fixing bugs that they've been made aware of isn't illegal. Maybe it should be, but it's not. Maybe the blame should be on the government officials who buy voting machines from vendors who aren't committed to transparency and security. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 20:34:31 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 12:34:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat >?No large, complex system is ever perfect? We can do better. >?And even if we had a perfect voting system, we'd still be subject to bogus conspiracy theories? We would have fewer however. >?They're not. They're not perfect, but they generally get the job done? If we can generally get the job done without them, is there any justification for the machines? What is that justification? >?The cause of riot wasn't distrust in voting machines, it was an unhinged, egomaniacal scam artist pushing unbacked claims of voting fraud. That could still happen without voting machines? So no worries, eliminate sources of suspicion of voter fraud. Some of that centers on voting machines, so get rid of those. We don?t need them. Some of the theories surround the vote harvesting, so end that. Some of it has to do with inadequate signature verification and failure to publish registered voter lists, so end those practices. Some of it has to do with failure to check ID at the voting places, so check ID at the voting places. If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every time. The winner of a trustworthy election system is by definition the good guys. Everyone, well nearly everyone, wants the good guys to win every time. I would estimate over 95% of all voters want the good guys to win. So? let us work to create a trustworthy voting system. Start by trashing those voting machines. >?If "nobody" trusts the machines, they should take that up with the people buying them with their money? Good idea. Start by voting out any policy maker who wants to use them. >?Imagine what could be accomplished by an open source hardware/software voting platform with a few million dollars of public funding. -Dave It wouldn?t cost a few million dollars. The open source would be paper ballots, filled out with a pen or pencil. They would be counted by armies of volunteers. So simple. So reliable. So trustworthy. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 20:45:17 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 12:45:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <009401d6e923$d6559b30$8300d190$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Brent Allsop via extropy-chat ? Great post, Brent, thanks. >?Here is a table from that MIT paper posted by Stuart: >?This table is completely backwards. The paper ballots are the ones that are not "Voter-verifiable", simply because that is too inefficient. No one voter can count all the paper ballots?. No one voter must count all the paper ballots. We can have armies of volunteers doing that. They can be double counted: a bin is counted, recorded, volunteers take that bin to another table at random, never having eyes of several volunteers taken off of that bin, counted again elsewhere, bin taken to storage with volunteer witnesses after second counting, the two results compared, if they agree, then those totals are recorded and that bin is moved to long term storage. This is so simple, I am really surprised no one has thought of it. Oh wait, that?s how it was done before voting machines came along, creating dangerous doubt in the minds of the voters that the system is flawed. At the state level where elections are controlled, we could have a movement to true the vote. The good guys want a true reliable election, so the good guys will embrace the notion, and there ya go: bipartisan and nearly unanimous support for truing the vote. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 31778 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 21:06:48 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 21:06:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <009401d6e923$d6559b30$8300d190$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <009401d6e923$d6559b30$8300d190$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 at 20:47, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > No one voter must count all the paper ballots. We can have armies of volunteers doing that. They can be double counted: a bin is counted, recorded, volunteers take that bin to another table at random, never having eyes of several volunteers taken off of that bin, counted again elsewhere, bin taken to storage with volunteer witnesses after second counting, the two results compared, if they agree, then those totals are recorded and that bin is moved to long term storage. > > This is so simple, I am really surprised no one has thought of it. Oh wait, that?s how it was done before voting machines came along, creating dangerous doubt in the minds of the voters that the system is flawed. > > At the state level where elections are controlled, we could have a movement to true the vote. The good guys want a true reliable election, so the good guys will embrace the notion, and there ya go: bipartisan and nearly unanimous support for truing the vote. > > spike > _______________________________________________ The good guys do want a true reliable election, but unfortunately this is politicians that we are dealing with. The fairest election is some form of proportional representation where those elected are in the same proportion as votes. This gives minority parties a share of the representation. But it tends to lead to governments which don't have an overwhelming majority, so many compromises have to be negotiated. The present politicians in USA and in Britain detest this proposed system as they much prefer to have two large political parties taking turns at ruling. So no change is likely. BillK From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 21:21:08 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:21:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 3:36 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > We can do better. > That's a truism. > >?And even if we had a perfect voting system, we'd still be subject to > bogus conspiracy theories? > > > > We would have fewer however. > I don't think conspiracy theories are significantly linked to reality. If we can generally get the job done without them, is there any > justification for the machines? What is that justification? > Hundreds of millions of ballots with a couple dozen or more votes on each need to be tabulated quickly and accurately. Sure, it can be done without technology, but that's *exactly* the kind of task that technology is suited to perform. The local metropolis used a system that scanned and tabulated paper ballots. I think that's a great approach: fast automatic tabulation that can be confirmed by slow and inaccurate humans teams. >?The cause of riot wasn't distrust in voting machines, it was an unhinged, > egomaniacal scam artist pushing unbacked claims of voting fraud. That could > still happen without voting machines? > > > > So no worries, eliminate sources of suspicion of voter fraud. > That's impossible. And trying to appease irrational conspiracy theorists and gullible rubes will only encourage them to make more demands. Some of that centers on voting machines, so get rid of those. We don?t > need them. Some of the theories surround the vote harvesting, so end > that. Some of it has to do with inadequate signature verification and > failure to publish registered voter lists, so end those practices. Some of > it has to do with failure to check ID at the voting places, so check ID at > the voting places. > All to satisfy unsubstantiated claims of fraud. > If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every time. > Nonsense. The winner will win. Which is exactly what we have now. > The winner of a trustworthy election system is by definition the good guys. > Not by my definition. > Everyone, well nearly everyone, wants the good guys to win every time. I > would estimate over 95% of all voters want the good guys to win. > Most of the time there aren't even any good guys on the ballot. People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others. And even if they weren't, good people can be corrupted. > So? let us work to create a trustworthy voting system. Start by trashing > those voting machines. > I'm a little surprised to see such a Luddite proposal on this list and from you. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 22:29:05 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 14:29:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat >?I don't think conspiracy theories are significantly linked to reality? Ja. This is a good reason to work on reducing conspiracy theories. Start by truing up the vote. >>? What is that justification? >?Hundreds of millions of ballots with a couple dozen or more votes on each need to be tabulated quickly and accurately. Sure, it can be done without technology, but that's exactly the kind of task that technology is suited to perform? We can get enough volunteers to do this accurately and have the answers within a week. >? fast automatic tabulation that can be confirmed by slow and inaccurate humans teams? No worries, have redundancy in the human teams. Count them until the numbers agree. We will wait. We know what is at stake. Nearly everyone wants the good guys to win. If we have a sufficiently accurate vote, the good guys win every time. >>?So no worries, eliminate sources of suspicion of voter fraud. >?That's impossible. And trying to appease irrational conspiracy theorists and gullible rubes will only encourage them to make more demands? Demanding an accurate reliable vote count is a reasonable demand. If a particular politician insists on voting machines and vote harvesting, then refers to the opponents as irrational conspiracy theorists and gullible rubes, that politician should be voted out and shamed for not wanting verifiable elections. Voting machines and harvesting decrease voter confidence in elections. Some of that centers on voting machines, so get rid of those? >?All to satisfy unsubstantiated claims of fraud? No, it is to increase confidence in elections. Voting machines decrease confidence in elections. Criticizing those who lack confidence in elections causes a decrease in confidence in those doing the criticism. If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every time. >?Nonsense. The winner will win. Which is exactly what we have now? Sense. If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every time. Now we have a voting system which is distrusted by many. The winner of a trustworthy election system is by definition the good guys. >?Not by my definition? Ja, that is what I have vaguely suspected from your comments above. Your definition causes me to lose confidence in you. Everyone, well nearly everyone, wants the good guys to win every time. I would estimate over 95% of all voters want the good guys to win. >?Most of the time there aren't even any good guys on the ballot? Define the good guys as the ones who win in a true election. There are good guys on every ballot. >? People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others? Hmmm. >? And even if they weren't, good people can be corrupted? That much is very clear. So? let us work to create a trustworthy voting system. Start by trashing those voting machines. >?I'm a little surprised to see such a Luddite proposal on this list and from you. > ?-Dave Dave if those voting machines and harvesting continues, each election will cause more people to doubt the outcome. This time the portion of voters who doubt that outcome took a huge leap. It will be worse every time. It is time to go to a more reliable system. Start with trashing those machines. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 23:09:37 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:09:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Emily Dickinson Message-ID: "....How public, like a frog, to sing your name the livelong June, to an admiring bog." Now - no more singing. Thanks be. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 23:14:06 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:14:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others. Dave And us? What makes us magically immune to bad judgments about people? High IQ is most definitely not enough. bill w On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 4:31 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Dave Sill via extropy-chat > > > > > >?I don't think conspiracy theories are significantly linked to reality? > > > > Ja. This is a good reason to work on reducing conspiracy theories. Start > by truing up the vote. > > > > > > >>? What is that justification? > > > > >?Hundreds of millions of ballots with a couple dozen or more votes on > each need to be tabulated quickly and accurately. Sure, it can be done > without technology, but that's *exactly* the kind of task that technology > is suited to perform? > > > > We can get enough volunteers to do this accurately and have the answers > within a week. > > > > >? fast automatic tabulation that can be confirmed by slow and inaccurate > humans teams? > > > > No worries, have redundancy in the human teams. Count them until the > numbers agree. We will wait. We know what is at stake. Nearly everyone > wants the good guys to win. If we have a sufficiently accurate vote, the > good guys win every time. > > > > > > >>?So no worries, eliminate sources of suspicion of voter fraud. > > > > >?That's impossible. And trying to appease irrational conspiracy theorists > and gullible rubes will only encourage them to make more demands? > > > > Demanding an accurate reliable vote count is a reasonable demand. If a > particular politician insists on voting machines and vote harvesting, then > refers to the opponents as irrational conspiracy theorists and gullible > rubes, that politician should be voted out and shamed for not wanting > verifiable elections. Voting machines and harvesting decrease voter > confidence in elections. > > > > > > > > Some of that centers on voting machines, so get rid of those? > > > > >?All to satisfy unsubstantiated claims of fraud? > > > > No, it is to increase confidence in elections. Voting machines decrease > confidence in elections. Criticizing those who lack confidence in > elections causes a decrease in confidence in those doing the criticism. > > If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every time. > > >?Nonsense. The winner will win. Which is exactly what we have now? > > > > Sense. If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every > time. Now we have a voting system which is distrusted by many. > > > > The winner of a trustworthy election system is by definition the good guys. > > >?Not by my definition? > > > > Ja, that is what I have vaguely suspected from your comments above. Your > definition causes me to lose confidence in you. > > > > > > Everyone, well nearly everyone, wants the good guys to win every time. I > would estimate over 95% of all voters want the good guys to win. > > > > >?Most of the time there aren't even any good guys on the ballot? > > > > Define the good guys as the ones who win in a true election. There are > good guys on every ballot. > > > > >? People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others? > > > > Hmmm. > > > > >? And even if they weren't, good people can be corrupted? > > > > That much is very clear. > > > > > > So? let us work to create a trustworthy voting system. Start by trashing > those voting machines. > > > > >?I'm a little surprised to see such a Luddite proposal on this list and > from you. > > > > > ?-Dave > > > > Dave if those voting machines and harvesting continues, each election will > cause more people to doubt the outcome. This time the portion of voters > who doubt that outcome took a huge leap. It will be worse every time. It > is time to go to a more reliable system. Start with trashing those > machines. > > > > 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 Jan 12 23:23:39 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 15:23:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00f301d6e939$f5ea50b0$e1bef210$@rainier66.com> >> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election >>? People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others. Dave >?And us? What makes us magically immune to bad judgments about people? High IQ is most definitely not enough. bill w Ja. That notion too easily leads to distrusting the people to decide on their leaders. So? we introduce mechanisms to make it easier to make sure the people choose the right people. I suggest we remove these mechanisms, true the vote, increase public confidence in the elections, let the people decide who they want as their leader. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 23:32:16 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:32:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 6:17 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others. Dave > > And us? What makes us magically immune to bad judgments about people? > High IQ is most definitely not enough. > We're not immune. Maybe we're smart enough to realize that we're not good at it, and act accordingly. More checks and balances, term limits, limiting power and scope of government, etc. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 12 23:39:08 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:39:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 5:31 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Dave Sill via extropy-chat > > >?I don't think conspiracy theories are significantly linked to reality? > > > > Ja. This is a good reason to work on reducing conspiracy theories. Start > by truing up the vote. > Are you channeling John K Clark? I get it: you want to true up the vote. No worries, have redundancy in the human teams. Count them until the > numbers agree. We will wait. We know what is at stake. Nearly everyone > wants the good guys to win. If we have a sufficiently accurate vote, the > good guys win every time. > We could and should continue to work to prevent voting fraud. But this is fixing a non-problem, and it feeds the kooks, who will say: see, I told you the 2020 election was rigged! And if you get fraud down to undetectable levels, they'll have some other explanation for how the vote was rigged. You can't win, and trying is foolish. > Demanding an accurate reliable vote count is a reasonable demand. > We have that now, for anyone not drinking the Kool-Ade. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 12 23:58:48 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 15:58:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <010f01d6e93e$df23d540$9d6b7fc0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat up the vote. >?Are you channeling John K Clark? I get it: you want to true up the vote? Ja, I am. You caught me. I?m channeling John K. Clark. Step 2: let?s start with the most obvious confidence destroyer. Plenty of the public realizes that voting machines can be hacked, and that we don?t need them. >?We could and should continue to work to prevent voting fraud? Good. On this we agree. >? But this is fixing a non-problem? Loss of confidence in the voting system is no non-problem. It is a huge and growing problem. >?and it feeds the kooks? Calling those who are suspicious of our voting system kooks doesn?t help. It makes them suspicious of you. >?who will say: see, I told you the 2020 election was rigged! No worries, if we increase confidence in the system, they will rejoice that it isn?t rigged now. This is a win-win. We want to make sure the good guys win every election. We do that by truing up the vote. >?And if you get fraud down to undetectable levels, they'll have some other explanation for how the vote was rigged?. But if we get the fraud level down to undetectable levels, the number of kooks will be reduced to undetectable levels. Problem solved. >?You can't win, and trying is foolish? There we disagree. Trying is critically important. Demanding an accurate reliable vote count is a reasonable demand. >?We have that now, for anyone not drinking the Kool-Ade. -Dave Casting doubt upon the doubters causes them to doubt you. Calling them gullible rubes causes them to think you are a gullible rube. Telling them they drank the kool-ade causes the doubters to think you are drinking the kool-ade. We can?t get to ending division by sowing addition division, by censoring the doubters, or cancelling the platforms which host the doubters. We get there only by increasing confidence in the election. That is what I am proposing. It?s very simple. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 00:03:14 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:03:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] dna and privacy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 12, 2021, at 10:46 AM, Darin Sunley via extropy-chat wrote: > The phrase "Why? Why would you /ever/..." comes vividly to mind. My initial reaction as well. Regards, Dan >> On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 11:39 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: >> ?And now your AncestryDNA results can play a unique mix of music, inspired by your origins,? announced Spotify in 2018, offering to tailor playlists. >> >> https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2021/01/12/marketers-are-beginning-to-use-data-mined-from-consumer-dna-tests-should-we-be-worried/? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 00:09:10 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:09:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: We're not immune. Maybe we're smart enough to realize that we're not good at it, and act accordingly. More checks and balances, term limits, limiting power and scope of government, etc. Dave What you have to change is inside your mind: detecting biases after you have figured out which of the multitudinous ones you are susceptible to - very likely not zero. Then and only then are you able to figure out what government changes you want and how to get them.. bill w -Dave On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 5:34 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 6:17 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others. Dave >> >> And us? What makes us magically immune to bad judgments about people? >> High IQ is most definitely not enough. >> > > We're not immune. Maybe we're smart enough to realize that we're not good > at it, and act accordingly. More checks and balances, term limits, limiting > power and scope of government, etc. > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 13 00:10:35 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:10:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] dna and privacy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I can't say that I understand your comment. Are you talking about the music list??? bill w On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 12:46 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The phrase "Why? Why would you /ever/..." comes vividly to mind. > > On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 11:39 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> ?And now your AncestryDNA results can play a unique mix of music, >> inspired by your origins,? announced Spotify >> in >> 2018, offering to tailor playlists. >> >> >> https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2021/01/12/marketers-are-beginning-to-use-data-mined-from-consumer-dna-tests-should-we-be-worried/ >> ? >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Jan 13 01:22:59 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:22:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Emily Dickinson In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D3C2CE2-24A8-4ACA-8D60-FD7FABDCCF55@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2021, at 3:11 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > ? > "....How public, like a frog, to sing your name the livelong June, to an admiring bog." > > Now - no more singing. Thanks be. > > bill w Great poet and how appropriate. At one time, I?d actually memorized a few of her poems.* Not that one though. Regards, Dan These: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52135/before-i-got-my-eye-put-out-336 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47651/after-great-pain-a-formal-feeling-comes-372 https://www.bartleby.com/113/1009.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Wed Jan 13 01:27:32 2021 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:27:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Dave Sill : > On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 12:49 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> I think a class-action lawsuit against Diebold et al on behalf of the >> American people would do wonders to bring this issue to the attention >> of the American public even if it gets thrown out of court. It would >> at least distract people from the strange message that the competing >> narratives have in common, and that is that conservatives and liberals >> are supposed to hate one another so much as to cause all political >> discourse devolve to shouting and name calling. Followed soon after >> with a closure of communication channels. The political parties are >> blaming one another for fraud due to mistrust caused by the voting >> machines even in the absence of any evidence of fraud. That is a >> design flaw inherent in the machines and shows negligence on the part >> of the developers. >> > > The voting machines aren't the problem. The current rage-addicted divisive > political environment is the problem. Complex misunderstood technology like social media platforms that have algorithms that sequester you into echo chambers is responsible for the rage-addicted divisive political environment. And while this year it might be conspiracy theorists on the lunatic fringe crying foul on the election, in 2016 it was well-heeled statisticians and mathematicians who were complaining about a huge discrepancy between exit polls and election results. People tend to have short memories and only implicate voting machine fraud when their side loses. We need to make it so that any yahoo with a smartphone can check verify that the election was fair. > Whereas any actual fraud would be apt to use backdoors or zero day >> exploits that would most likely be known to the developers and >> vendors, again making them liable. > > Vendors don't know about zero-day vulnerabilities or they'd fix them. They > may know about back doors. Vendors usually find find out about zero-day vulnerabilities well ahead of the general voting public which is why they push out software patches without being asked to by the end-users. > >> Plus suing the developers and >> vendors of the machines themselves might flush out any other culprits >> based on who moves to block. >> > > Suing them for what, exactly? Having bugs isn't illegal. Not fixing bugs > that they've been made aware of isn't illegal. Maybe it should be, but it's > not. False advertising perhaps? Obviously, they made their sales by claiming that their technology was superior to paper ballots when any guy with minimal education can audit paper ballots but only the elite can audit voting machines. Lack of transparency is negligence when it comes to voting machines. Remember the goal here is not necessarily to win the lawsuit but to bring this issue before the American people in a way that can't be swept under the rug by the media. The news cannot hide that every American who voted got a notice in the mail that they may be entitled to a couple of dollars in compensation because voting machine developers can't PROVE that the election wasn't stolen. > Maybe the blame should be on the government officials who buy voting > machines from vendors who aren't committed to transparency and security. Most assuredly that where the blame SHOULD lie. Unfortunately governments have sovereign immunity to lawsuits except for very specific offenses that are codified into law. Lack of election transparency is unfortunately not one of those offenses. Even though the goal is not to win the lawsuit, it has to get its day in court to accomplish its aim. Stuart LaForge From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 02:04:07 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 21:04:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 8:31 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Vendors usually find find out about zero-day vulnerabilities well > ahead of the general voting public which is why they push out software > patches without being asked to by the end-users. > 35-year IT pro here, so I'm well aware of IT security issues. Vendors find out about zero-day exploits at the same time as everyone else: when their product is being exploited and someone reports it. They might find exploitable problems on their own or when a white hat notifies them, but zero-days are found in the wild. > Suing them for what, exactly? Having bugs isn't illegal. Not fixing bugs > > that they've been made aware of isn't illegal. Maybe it should be, but > it's > > not. > > False advertising perhaps? Obviously, they made their sales by > claiming that their technology was superior to paper ballots when any > guy with minimal education can audit paper ballots but only the elite > can audit voting machines. Sure, the marketing guys might have said that, but the fine print of the license agreement between the vendor and the buyers will be very explicit about what the vendor is and is not responsible for. They're not stupid. Lack of transparency is negligence when it > comes to voting machines. Remember the goal here is not necessarily to > win the lawsuit but to bring this issue before the American people in > a way that can't be swept under the rug by the media. Getting any traction on a suit like that will take serious money and effort. In the end, I think caveat emptor will apply. Nobody held a gun to anyone's head and made them buy crappy voting machines. The news cannot > hide that every American who voted got a notice in the mail that they > may be entitled to a couple of dollars in compensation because voting > machine developers can't PROVE that the election wasn't stolen. > Nobody pays attention to class action settlements. And why should vendors have to prove anything unless that was part of the contract they signed with their customers? > Maybe the blame should be on the government officials who buy voting > > machines from vendors who aren't committed to transparency and security. > > Most assuredly that where the blame SHOULD lie. Unfortunately > governments have sovereign immunity to lawsuits except for very > specific offenses that are codified into law. Lack of election > transparency is unfortunately not one of those offenses. Even though > the goal is not to win the lawsuit, it has to get its day in court to > accomplish its aim. Voters should just demand election transparency and not vote for candidates opposed to it. Going after voting machine manufacturers is not directly addressing the problem. But feel free to give it a go. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 02:04:22 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:04:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat ... > >>... The voting machines aren't the problem. The current rage-addicted > divisive political environment is the problem. >...Complex misunderstood technology like social media platforms that have algorithms that sequester you into echo chambers is responsible for the rage-addicted divisive political environment... The social media people really played right into that, ja? What did they think would happen when they started selectively filtering content? I don't recall electing Google as arbiter of truth. Did anyone here elect Apple to dictate ethics to us? Where do these guys derive the moral authority to squelch a platform that doesn't filter content? Are they really that blind to not see: that makes the problem of division a lot worse. >... People tend to have short memories and only implicate voting machine fraud when their side loses... So it might seem. However, the voting machine appeared dangerous to me long before the questionable 2000 election, and has ever since. Public confidence in elections has been declining ever since. It isn't who won and who lost, but rather that the public has lost confidence in the integrity of the process. This may lead to anarchy. I notice how quickly the Resist movement has transformed to Trust and obey. I take a third path: Trust but verify. >...We need to make it so that any yahoo with a smartphone can check verify that the election was fair. >...> Vendors don't know about zero-day vulnerabilities or they'd fix them. > They may know about back doors. >...Vendors usually find find out about zero-day vulnerabilities well ahead of the general voting public which is why they push out software patches without being asked to by the end-users... They may, they usually, etc. We need more certainty than those terms contain. I still haven't heard a good reason why we need the machines. Scrap em. >... The news cannot hide that every American who voted got a notice in the mail that they may be entitled to a couple of dollars in compensation because voting machine developers can't PROVE that the election wasn't stolen... Stuart LaForge OK, well that makes me feel better: I get a coupla bucks compensation. From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 02:19:20 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 21:19:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 9:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > It isn't who won and who lost, but rather that the public has lost > confidence in the integrity of the process. This may lead to anarchy. > Well, yeah, that's the best-case scenario. :-) -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 02:32:18 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:32:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> >?> On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 9:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: It isn't who won and who lost, but rather that the public has lost confidence in the integrity of the process. This may lead to anarchy. >?Well, yeah, that's the best-case scenario. :-) -Dave Dave I suspect most people will not like anarchy if thrust upon them. The anarchists won?t like it either. It won?t turn out anything like what they thought. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 02:48:57 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:48:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> There is widespread bipartisan agreement on scrapping the voting machines. This goes way back: Bernie Sanders: "I agree with tens of millions of Americans who are very worried that when they cast a ballot on an electronic voting machine that there is no paper trail to record that vote in the event of a recount." https://twitter.com/i/status/1327231468012236807 BillK, do they use voting machines in the UK? Italians among us, do they use voting machines there? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 10:05:50 2021 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 11:05:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Russian cosmism and Western transhumanism: Friends or foes? Message-ID: Russian cosmism and Western transhumanism: Friends or foes? Perhaps there?s more tension between Russian cosmism and contemporary Western transhumanism than appears at a first glance... https://turingchurch.net/russian-cosmism-and-western-transhumanism-friends-or-foes-deeb96704df2 From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 10:47:05 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 10:47:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Jan 2021 at 02:51, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > There is widespread bipartisan agreement on scrapping the voting machines. This goes way back: > > BillK, do they use voting machines in the UK? Italians among us, do they use voting machines there? > > spike _______________________________________________ No, to both. Some testing has been done. See: BillK From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 13:00:01 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 08:00:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 9:34 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 9:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > It isn't who won and who lost, but rather that the public has lost > confidence in the integrity of the process. This may lead to anarchy. > > >?Well, yeah, that's the best-case scenario. :-) > > > > Dave I suspect most people will not like anarchy if thrust upon them. The > anarchists won?t like it either. It won?t turn out anything like what they > thought. > Hence, the smiley. Anarchy achieved by the collapse of the existing system will certainly be messy. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Wed Jan 13 13:19:36 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 14:19:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3BECF823-69A4-4E67-A9C4-CABA7E432567@me.com> Two points about what is quoted below: 1.) Nobody is being censored. Being denied access to some companies? platforms is not censorship. An analog newspaper could refuse to print a PAID ad: ?Fascist seeks mob for mutually beneficial relationship." 2.) The only wide scale voter fraud was the apparently ?acceptable? gerrymandering, voter roll purges, and ?special ID laws?. The only real problem with American democracy is that through the activities outlined in point 2 above, and the Electoral College, we consistently have situations where people with fewer votes win. This willful perversion of democracy leads inevitably from ?corrupting the system? to ?smashing the system? when the Republicans can't even win with a system rigged in their favor. Blockchain as a solution? Maybe...at least until it gets cracked by some quantum computing system?then we?ll need some other sort of ?quantum computing proof? cryptography. But to do it we would need strong national ID cards, biometrics, and verification. The real fallout that people on this list might want to watch out for is that cryptography might become government regulated in the ?fight against (domestic) terrorism?. Regards, Omar Rahman > On 12 Jan 2021, at 17:54, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 09:53:59 -0700 > From: Brent Allsop > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election > Message-ID: > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Wait, what? > > > > Dave Sill said: > > > > ?No large, complex system is ever perfect. And even if we had a perfect > voting system, we'd still be subject to bogus conspiracy theories.? > > > > Which is exactly the point. Making a system so bullet proof, it can?t > fail, faces the problem of diminishing returns for increased expense, never > achieving perfection without infinite cost. The solution is redundancy ? > lots of cheap systems, so if any one or two fail, the rest of the system > keeps on working. The internet works the same bottom-up way. Censoring is > just viewed as failure, and routes around it. > > > > Just like diversity of opinion (anti group think) is a good thing, > Conspiracy theories are also good. The easy path is to go along with the > ?group think?, it takes real effort to pursue highly unlikely, yet still > real possibilities. And revolutions always start with that one brilliant > first person to recognize a new way. So, you must provide a system with > lots of tools (like the sledgehammer tool in Spike?s Apple Video) to > encourage things like this. > > > > Censoring anyone is only addressing the symptoms, which has the opposite > effect of giving power to the underlying issue. If you censor anyone, that > just cause people to switch to (or build if necessary) a different system > to rout around that failure. That is a good thing. All censoring is a > hierarchical / authoritarian action. Playing the game of warring > hierarchies is always a win lose game. We need to flip this upside down, > to the win/win bottom-up system. Instead of a win/lose, bottom-up system, > have the goal of finding out, and getting everyone all that they want. > > > > Wherever there is a will, someone will find a way. This is the core of the > issue we face today. And censoring conspiracy theories just polarizes > everyone into warring hierarchies. You need a bottom-up system that values > all voices, with no censoring, like Canonizer.com , which can address the > core issue (giving everyone a voice) and bringing everyone back together to > play a win / win game. > > > > In addition to redundancy, lots of cheap, replaceable systems, you simply > want to give everyone a voice. Instead of the establishment dictating what > is and isn?t censored (what the guy at the top wants), you give all > individuals the choice to decide that, personally. If someone is willing > to pursue a conspiracy theory, anyone willing to pay that price should be > highly valued. You give them the ability to create their own, anti > establishment competing camp. It is up to them to describe their claims, > which should be falsifiable, for them. Then you support them, performing > the experiments they are suggesting, and only when they are convinced that > the group consensus is right, and they communicate this to everyone by > jumping from their then falsified, for them camp, to the group consensus > theory, problem solved. Again, that is how canonizer is designed to work. > > > > Here is a table from that MIT paper posted by Stuart: > > > [image: image.png] > > > This table is completely backwards. The paper ballots are the ones that > are not "Voter-verifiable", simply because that is too inefficient. No one > voter can count all the paper ballots. And anyone claiming that blockchain > voting isn?t verifiable doesn?t understand blockchain. Anyone, and their > dog, can get a copy of the blockchain ledger of all votes. Anyone and > their dog can pick their preferred open-source verification code to verify > their copy of the ledger. Blockchain voting is the only one that should be > green, in such a table. > > > > > On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 6:22 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > wrote: > >> On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 9:31 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > wrote: >> >>> As such, the only clear remedy to prevent this sort of debacle in the >>> future, is to design our elections to be so secure as to be above >>> reproach. >> >> >> No large, complex system is ever perfect. And even if we had a perfect >> voting system, we'd still be subject to bogus conspiracy theories. >> >> >>> Which brings up another point. If voting machines are universally >>> distrusted and despised, >> >> >> They're not. They're not perfect, but they generally get the job done. >> >> >>> then why do we still use them? Why do >>> companies still make them? If distrust of voting machines are causing >>> massive protests that lead to injury, loss of life, and destruction of >>> property and historic artifacts, >> >> >> The cause of riot wasn't distrust in voting machines, it was an unhinged, >> egomaniacal scam artist pushing unbacked claims of voting fraud. That could >> still happen without voting machines. >> >> >>> then should not the manufacturers of >>> voting machines be held liable for the damages? >> >> >> Based on unproven allegations? Of course not. >> >> >>> Putting these >>> companies on the hook for the damage done seems a great deterrent to >>> keep companies from trying to sell governments voting machines that >>> nobody trusts. >>> >> >> If "nobody" trusts the machines, they should take that up with the people >> buying them with their money. >> >> It would make it so that any kind of voting software would have to be >>> developed open source >> >> >> Imagine what could be accomplished by an open source hardware/software >> voting platform with a few million dollars of public funding. >> >> -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 14:49:49 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 06:49:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002b01d6e9bb$58a5b7e0$09f127a0$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election > > BillK, do they use voting machines in the UK? Italians among us, do they use voting machines there? > > spike _______________________________________________ >...No, to both. Some testing has been done. See: BillK _______________________________________________ Thanks BillK. I don't understand why voters are still allowing the machines to be used here. The article points out an ideal compromise: have systems that fill out the ballot, then print out a paper form. This could be done from home if the user has a printer. If done from home, the ballots would be mailed in, signatures verified and digital images placed in the public domain. This would not reveal who the voter chose, but would verify only that the voter voted, which is already public domain (for those who visit the polling place in person.) Then the votes would be counted by hand by humans, with redundant count by a second randomly-chosen group not given access to the totals by the first group. That system looks superior, even while acknowledging that it allows for theoretical selling of votes. We have that already, but there is nothing we can do about it. This notion would make it more difficult. We must recognize that big money interests control the government now and always have. So we redefine selling of votes as legal and move on. This way we don't end up with signed blank ballots being used as currency: the software would only print out the ballots if some choice was marked in every race, with the default choice being None of the above. spike From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 15:03:04 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 10:03:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 9:51 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > There is widespread bipartisan agreement on scrapping the voting > machines. This goes way back: > > > > Bernie Sanders: "I agree with tens of millions of Americans who are very > worried that when they cast a ballot on an electronic voting machine that > there is no paper trail to record that vote in the event of a recount." > So what's your objection to optical scanning systems? Seems like the best of both worlds: quick results and paper ballots for manual counting. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 15:19:17 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 07:19:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003301d6e9bf$763c7fb0$62b57f10$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 9:51 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: There is widespread bipartisan agreement on scrapping the voting machines. This goes way back: Bernie Sanders: "I agree with tens of millions of Americans who are very worried that when they cast a ballot on an electronic voting machine that there is no paper trail to record that vote in the event of a recount." >?So what's your objection to optical scanning systems? Seems like the best of both worlds: quick results and paper ballots for manual counting. -Dave Hi Dave, I have no objections to any of that, with an important condition: the votes must be counted by hand, the results certified before any machine anything can take place. Once those votes have been counted by hand and certified, the optical systems can do anything they want. If they report something different from what the human-certified count reported, no worries, put them thru the machine again. And again. If still a discrepancy, recount by hand. If the machine still disagrees with the human count, let the plaintiff take it to court. If quick results, just use the exit polls. That?s the quickest of all. Better yet, use entrance polls, which is even quicker. Those can be done weeks or months before election day. This way, the voter confidence in the election result is maintained, and we know weeks or months ahead of the election who won. The good guys win, everyone wins. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 15:29:26 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 07:29:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <003301d6e9bf$763c7fb0$62b57f10$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> <003301d6e9bf$763c7fb0$62b57f10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001601d6e9c0$e15d2960$a4177c20$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com ? >?So what's your objection to optical scanning systems? Seems like the best of both worlds: quick results and paper ballots for manual counting. -Dave Dave your comment brings up an interesting new question: why is quick results one of the worlds? We understand why we need verifiable, trustworthy results, but it isn?t clear to me why we introduced the competing need for speed. Our system was set up in the days when people traveled aboard a beast, or in a conveyance pulled by them, which isn?t fast, so we allowed two and a half months to get to the site. So what?s the big hurry? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 15:48:45 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 10:48:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <001601d6e9c0$e15d2960$a4177c20$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> <003301d6e9bf$763c7fb0$62b57f10$@rainier66.com> <001601d6e9c0$e15d2960$a4177c20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 10:31 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Our system was set up in the days when people traveled aboard a beast, or > in a conveyance pulled by them, which isn?t fast, so we allowed two and a > half months to get to the site. So what?s the big hurry? > There are cases to be made for a big hurry: like minimizing the period during which we don't know winner(s) so people can come to terms with the results and the transitions can proceed. But, really, I just don't think there's any good reason that results shouldn't come faster with the application of modern technology. Sure, if manually-counted paper ballots were immune to fraud or allegations of fraud, that would be a good reason to accept a delay. But they're not. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 13 15:54:25 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 10:54:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <003301d6e9bf$763c7fb0$62b57f10$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> <003301d6e9bf$763c7fb0$62b57f10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 10:21 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Hi Dave, I have no objections to any of that, with an important condition: > the votes must be counted by hand, the results certified before any machine > anything can take place. Once those votes have been counted by hand and > certified, the optical systems can do anything they want. If they report > something different from what the human-certified count reported, no > worries, put them thru the machine again. And again. If still a > discrepancy, recount by hand. If the machine still disagrees with the > human count, let the plaintiff take it to court. > So you throw away the advantage of technology. No point in having the technology, then. If quick results, just use the exit polls. That?s the quickest of all. > Better yet, use entrance polls, which is even quicker. Those can be done > weeks or months before election day. This way, the voter confidence in the > election result is maintained, and we know weeks or months ahead of the > election who won. The good guys win, everyone wins. > Notoriously inaccurate. Nobody is going to project a winner except in the most one-sided contests. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 16:23:21 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 08:23:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20210112172732.Horde.68RC44VO7DgvEBBPxX2pN8L@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <018c01d6e950$6a6bbf30$3f433d90$@rainier66.com> <019901d6e954$50eb7060$f2c25120$@rainier66.com> <01c001d6e956$a4445810$eccd0830$@rainier66.com> <003301d6e9bf$763c7fb0$62b57f10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003901d6e9c8$695b2400$3c116c00$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat >?So you throw away the advantage of technology? Ja, along with the disadvantage: the public?s growing distrust of the technology. >?No point in having the technology, then? Understatement: point in not having it. The justification for the cost is far too weak. >>?If quick results, just use the exit polls. ? >?Notoriously inaccurate? Ja, so let us make sure the hand count is notoriously accurate. >?Nobody is going to project a winner except in the most one-sided contests. -Dave OK, no worries. We can live a week or two with vaguely projected winners. After the end of that week or two, we will know the good guys won. Now we can?t be sure they did. We reached this uncertainty quickly however, so we did accomplish quick uncertainty. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jan 13 17:09:42 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:09:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <407af100-43fc-7dd7-0383-2c8325693f9b@pobox.com> On 2021-1-11 18:29, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > If distrust of voting machines are causing > massive protests that lead to injury, loss of life, and destruction of > property and historic artifacts, then should not the manufacturers of > voting machines be held liable for the damages? Too bad we can't put distrust on trial. > Because as noted by James Madison in the Federalist Papers, without > trust in one another and our institutions, despotism is the only way > to prevent violence: Another way is to remove the jackpots (positive and negative) that tempt violence. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jan 13 17:19:32 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:19:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <001801d6e89b$79de8750$6d9b95f0$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001601d6e898$9aa5d2c0$cff17840$@rainier66.com> <001001d6e89b$34c99790$9e5cc6b0$@rainier66.com> <001801d6e89b$79de8750$6d9b95f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-11 20:29, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > I don?t think these tech biggies get it.? By taking away the voices > of dissent, they aren?t reducing societal conflict, they increase it. Could be they're anticipating the repeal of CDA?230, exiling the voices of violence to avoid liability for themselves. Did I hear right that ?230 was the only part of the Communications Decency Act to survive a First Amendment challenge? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 17:20:27 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:20:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <407af100-43fc-7dd7-0383-2c8325693f9b@pobox.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <407af100-43fc-7dd7-0383-2c8325693f9b@pobox.com> Message-ID: <005b01d6e9d0$6365be90$2a313bb0$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On 2021-1-11 18:29, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: >>... If distrust of voting machines are causing massive protests that lead > to injury, loss of life, and destruction of property and historic > artifacts, then should not the manufacturers of voting machines be > held liable for the damages? >...Too bad we can't put distrust on trial... *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org Anton, distrust is on trial now, and being found guilty. With voting systems developing as they are, we are seeing increasing demand from tech and communications companies to trust and obey. Failure to trust and obey is being seen as a justification for removal from the platform. I am urging trust but verify. spike From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jan 13 17:25:22 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:25:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <009401d6e923$d6559b30$8300d190$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <009401d6e923$d6559b30$8300d190$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <7f70de50-9965-1aa1-ce42-5829ad284e78@pobox.com> On 2021-1-12 12:45, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > No one voter must count all the paper ballots.? We can have armies of > volunteers doing that.? They can be double counted: a bin is counted, > recorded, volunteers take that bin to another table at random, never > having eyes of several volunteers taken off of that bin, counted again > elsewhere, bin taken to storage with volunteer witnesses after second > counting, the two results compared, if they agree, then those totals are > recorded and that bin is moved to long term storage. (And if they mismatch?) I hope some magicians are involved in designing the procedure. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jan 13 17:28:34 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:28:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <009401d6e923$d6559b30$8300d190$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <60935832-114b-6b6e-101d-153e64e70f4b@pobox.com> On 2021-1-12 13:06, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > The fairest election is some > form of proportional representation where those elected are in the > same proportion as votes. This gives minority parties a share of the > representation. But it tends to lead to governments which don't have > an overwhelming majority, so many compromises have to be negotiated. > The present politicians in USA and in Britain detest this proposed > system as they much prefer to have two large political parties taking > turns at ruling. So no change is likely. A pet theory of mine: because politicians like to feel important (and/or like to keep political donors motivated), they hate any scheme that lowers the stakes. If compromises are inevitable, voters may shrug, "How bad can it be?" -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jan 13 17:35:14 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:35:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-12 13:21, Dave Sill via extropy-chat wrote: > Most of the time there aren't even any good guys on the ballot. > People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others. I'm not convinced of that. There are at least two better explanations: the candidate selection process rewards qualities unrelated to fitness to govern; and there is little to no benefit to the voter in making an effort to choose wisely. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jan 13 17:38:33 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:38:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <0cdadaf5-9258-69f6-79b7-54add60035c6@pobox.com> Spike: > If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every time. Dave Sill: > >?Nonsense. The winner will win. Which is exactly what we have now? Spike: > Sense. If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every > time. Now we have a voting system which is distrusted by many. Everyone knows, counting-machines created all the perversities of the primary process. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jan 13 17:42:56 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:42:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <010f01d6e93e$df23d540$9d6b7fc0$@rainier66.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> <010f01d6e93e$df23d540$9d6b7fc0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <49f80cbc-076e-fb39-c671-643d44ca397d@pobox.com> On 2021-1-12 15:58, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > Loss of confidence in the voting system is no non-problem. > It is a huge and growing problem. > [...] > Calling those who are suspicious of our voting system kooks > doesn?t help.? It makes them suspicious of you. Can we at least distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable suspicions? between for example "the maker of this voting machine has never submitted its code to outside expert scrutiny" and "Trump's rallies were so much bigger than Biden's, he cannot have lost honestly!" -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Wed Jan 13 17:54:32 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:54:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <3BECF823-69A4-4E67-A9C4-CABA7E432567@me.com> References: <3BECF823-69A4-4E67-A9C4-CABA7E432567@me.com> Message-ID: <4060dca0-6f8d-0244-4dc5-bbe9f92e26d9@pobox.com> On 2021-1-13 05:19, Omar Rahman via extropy-chat wrote: > The only real problem with American democracy is that through the > activities outlined in point 2 above, and the Electoral College, we > consistently have situations where people with fewer votes win. When it's REALLY IMPORTANT which candidate wins a close race, another problem exists. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 17:55:08 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:55:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <60935832-114b-6b6e-101d-153e64e70f4b@pobox.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <009401d6e923$d6559b30$8300d190$@rainier66.com> <60935832-114b-6b6e-101d-153e64e70f4b@pobox.com> Message-ID: <006501d6e9d5$3be4e210$b3aea630$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On 2021-1-12 13:06, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > >... So no change is likely... BillK >...A pet theory of mine: because politicians like to feel important (and/or like to keep political donors motivated), they hate any scheme that lowers the stakes... -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org _______________________________________________ Ja. In Orwell's classic, political power became a proxy for wealth. It wasn't so much that power could be traded for currency, for currency had become mostly irrelevant. It really was all about political power. Result: government was made up of people who worked for and lusted after concentrated political power the way capitalists work for money. Government workers developed a disdain for the proles' irrelevance, a contempt for anyone who did not have power. An example was their dismissive term proles for all those outside of government. It didn't matter how well-educated or how wealthy they were. Animals and proles are free. (Part 1, chapter 7.) In Oceana, it came down to a choice: luxury or freedom. spike From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 18:01:24 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 10:01:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <0cdadaf5-9258-69f6-79b7-54add60035c6@pobox.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> <0cdadaf5-9258-69f6-79b7-54add60035c6@pobox.com> Message-ID: <006601d6e9d6$1bfda850$53f8f8f0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat Spike: >>... Sense. If we true up the voting system, the good guys will win every > time. Now we have a voting system which is distrusted by many. >...Everyone knows, counting-machines created all the perversities of the primary process. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org _______________________________________________ Anton why do we still use them? Do they have any other redeeming qualities besides speed? I agree they are quick to achieve a distrusted result, but what's the big hurry? spike From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 13 18:05:48 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 10:05:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <49f80cbc-076e-fb39-c671-643d44ca397d@pobox.com> References: <20210111182911.Horde.jEq7O5VPqk_nESUELWowVU1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <008401d6e922$558381d0$008a8570$@rainier66.com> <00bd01d6e932$568483d0$038d8b70$@rainier66.com> <010f01d6e93e$df23d540$9d6b7fc0$@rainier66.com> <49f80cbc-076e-fb39-c671-643d44ca397d@pobox.com> Message-ID: <006701d6e9d6$b92ebf10$2b8c3d30$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On 2021-1-12 15:58, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > >...Loss of confidence in the voting system is no non-problem. > It is a huge and growing problem. > [...] > >...Calling those who are suspicious of our voting system kooks doesn?t >help. It makes them suspicious of you. >...Can we at least distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable suspicions? >... *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org Of course. Who gets to decide what is reasonable and unreasonable? I nominate me. I demand that no one question my judgement once I have made my ironfisted proclamation. I forbid internet providers to give a voice to anyone questioning what I have dictated as reasonable suspicions or of promoting unreasonable one. Anton, thanks for that suggestion. spike From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 14 00:50:50 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 16:50:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2021, at 9:43 AM, Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat wrote: > ?On 2021-1-12 13:21, Dave Sill via extropy-chat wrote: >> Most of the time there aren't even any good guys on the ballot. >> People are staggeringly bad at judging the character of others. > > I'm not convinced of that. There are at least two better explanations: the candidate selection process rewards qualities unrelated to fitness to govern; and there is little to no benefit to the voter in making an effort to choose wisely. The latter is the gist of Bryan Caplan?s The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, a book I?ve been hoping for years now that Spike would read. Regards, Dan From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 14 01:00:19 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 17:00:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > >>... I'm not convinced of that. There are at least two better explanations: the candidate selection process rewards qualities unrelated to fitness to govern; and there is little to no benefit to the voter in making an effort to choose wisely. >...The latter is the gist of Bryan Caplan?s The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, a book I?ve been hoping for years now that Spike would read. Regards, Dan _______________________________________________ Hi Dan, The reason I have not chosen to invest the time in that book is that I already know Democracies choose bad policies. Fortunately the USA is not a democracy. spike From bronto at pobox.com Thu Jan 14 01:21:07 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 17:21:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> Anton: >>> [...] and there is little to no benefit to the voter >>> in making an effort to choose wisely. Dan: >> ...The latter is the gist of Bryan Caplan?s The Myth of the >> Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, a book >> I?ve been hoping for years now that Spike would read. Spike: > The reason I have not chosen to invest the time in that book > is that I already know Democracies choose bad policies. Knowing that they do != understanding why they do. (Full disclosure: I haven't read it either, but maybe Dan doesn't think I need to) > Fortunately the USA is not a democracy. Also, true socialism has never been tried. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Thu Jan 14 01:48:33 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 17:48:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> Message-ID: <4d7437c3-929a-4339-53c7-5acdcb577d09@pobox.com> Spike: >> Fortunately the USA is not a democracy. Anton: > Also, true socialism has never been tried. I did not give proper consideration to that "Fortunately" when choosing that snark. Please substitute this: I assume that Caplan meant "democracies" broadly, not restricted to direct democracy. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 14 01:50:51 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 19:50:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> Message-ID: Also, true socialism has never been tried. I'll bet it has. Hippie communities in the '60s - but I am just guessing. Also guessing that it didn't last for long, like free love without jealousy. HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!! bill w On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 7:23 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Anton: > >>> [...] and there is little to no benefit to the voter > >>> in making an effort to choose wisely. > > Dan: > >> ...The latter is the gist of Bryan Caplan?s The Myth of the > >> Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, a book > >> I?ve been hoping for years now that Spike would read. > > Spike: > > The reason I have not chosen to invest the time in that book > > is that I already know Democracies choose bad policies. > > Knowing that they do != understanding why they do. > > (Full disclosure: I haven't read it either, > but maybe Dan doesn't think I need to) > > > Fortunately the USA is not a democracy. > > Also, true socialism has never been tried. > > -- > *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 14 02:34:48 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 18:34:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> Message-ID: <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election Also, true socialism has never been tried. >?I'll bet it has. Hippie communities in the '60s - but I am just guessing. Also guessing that it didn't last for long, like free love without jealousy. HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!! bill w True socialism has been tried: it still ran out of other people?s money. If you go to descriptions of experimental communes, it sounds like a common problem focus was the whole shared-mate business. Communes would kinda work fairly OK if they didn?t go with that feature: people would share the farming tools and so on, but sharing mates just went to hard against the grain of our nature so long established in humans by social pressures and evolutionary psychology. T.C. Boyle?s take on communes in his Drop City novel has the women grumbling constantly about the whole free-love business, which was firmly insisted upon by the men who organized the whole arrangement. Everything must be shared, and women?s bodies were included in the everything. The women tolerated it (mostly unhappily) until one of the daughters came of age (15) and the men eagerly expected her to join the whole free love scene, at which time her mother said adios amigos, took her teenage daughter and rejoined mainstream society. The rest of them went to Alaska, where things went badly. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 14 15:08:57 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 09:08:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, you can put a large percentage of human behavior under these three words: sex, aggression, money. The free love group you mentioned was basically authoritarian: it told women what they must do with their bodies. Know of any libertarian hippie groups? bill w On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 8:36 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] Immaculate Election > > > > Also, true socialism has never been tried. > > > > >?I'll bet it has. Hippie communities in the '60s - but I am just > guessing. Also guessing that it didn't last for long, like free love > without jealousy. HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!! bill w > > > > > > True socialism has been tried: it still ran out of other people?s money. > > > > If you go to descriptions of experimental communes, it sounds like a > common problem focus was the whole shared-mate business. Communes would > kinda work fairly OK if they didn?t go with that feature: people would > share the farming tools and so on, but sharing mates just went to hard > against the grain of our nature so long established in humans by social > pressures and evolutionary psychology. > > > > T.C. Boyle?s take on communes in his Drop City novel has the women > grumbling constantly about the whole free-love business, which was firmly > insisted upon by the men who organized the whole arrangement. Everything > must be shared, and women?s bodies were included in the everything. The > women tolerated it (mostly unhappily) until one of the daughters came of > age (15) and the men eagerly expected her to join the whole free love > scene, at which time her mother said adios amigos, took her teenage > daughter and rejoined mainstream society. The rest of them went to Alaska, > where things went badly. > > > > 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 Jan 14 15:39:45 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 07:39:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2021 7:09 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election Spike, you can put a large percentage of human behavior under these three words: sex, aggression, money. The free love group you mentioned was basically authoritarian: it told women what they must do with their bodies. Know of any libertarian hippie groups? bill w Eh, I am too far outside my area of expertise on that one Bill. I really couldn?t say: I know no hippie groups. My perception is that hippie groups were generally libertarian back in the days when it was conservatives who were the authoritarians (back when we had the draft.) Libertarians opposed the draft and drug laws. Now, the draft is long gone, and it is very difficult to get the military to take you (they don?t really need more people (so they are very selective (I am a firsthand witness on that (scouts hoping to get in.)))) Drug laws are either gone or going. So now conservatives are generally not authoritarian. Now it is the other way around, with a wild-eyed vengeance. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 14 15:49:01 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 09:49:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: So now conservatives are generally not authoritarian. Now it is the other way around, with a wild-eyed vengeance. spike It is not the other way around, since you explained that those leftists were not liberals. Conservatives will always be more authoritarian. Let's not forget Haidt's book: https://moralfoundations.org/ bill w On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 9:41 AM 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:* Thursday, January 14, 2021 7:09 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election > > > > Spike, you can put a large percentage of human behavior under these three > words: sex, aggression, money. The free love group you mentioned was > basically authoritarian: it told women what they must do with their > bodies. Know of any libertarian hippie groups? bill w > > > > > > Eh, I am too far outside my area of expertise on that one Bill. I really > couldn?t say: I know no hippie groups. My perception is that hippie groups > were generally libertarian back in the days when it was conservatives who > were the authoritarians (back when we had the draft.) > > > > Libertarians opposed the draft and drug laws. Now, the draft is long > gone, and it is very difficult to get the military to take you (they don?t > really need more people (so they are very selective (I am a firsthand > witness on that (scouts hoping to get in.)))) Drug laws are either gone or > going. So now conservatives are generally not authoritarian. Now it is > the other way around, with a wild-eyed vengeance. > > > > 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 Jan 14 16:32:37 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 08:32:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election >>?So now conservatives are generally not authoritarian. Now it is the other way around, with a wild-eyed vengeance. spike >? It is not the other way around, since you explained that those leftists were not liberals. Conservatives will always be more authoritarian. Let's not forget Haidt's book: https://moralfoundations.org/ bill w Eh, I can?t see anything in the modern conservative?s agenda which requires authoritarianism. I am no expert on that however: I don?t know where or what the modern conservative is about or what they want. I don?t even know where to go to find reliable information on conservatives. Regarding voting machines: that 2000 experience convinced me and plenty of others that CNN handed that election to Bush. Reasoning: after 9pm eastern, 8pm central, CNN declared Florida for Gore, telling listeners the polls had closed. If the polls are closed and a winner has been declared, there is no point in going to the polling place. Back in those days, the big news agencies were CNN first, FoxNews the growing upstart. In very general, liberals were more likely to listen to CNN, conservatives more likely to listen to FoxNews. Being both conservative and liberal simultaneously, I listen to both. On that day in November 2000, I was switching back and forth between the two. The CNN crew were already dancing in the end-zone while the clock was still running and the ball was still in play. FoxNews at that time were calling out numbers in realtime, reminding its listeners that the polls were still open in western Florida. At the time CNN started popping corks on the champaign bottles at about 9pm eastern, Gore had won by about 2100 votes. Ten minutes later Gore had won by about 1700 votes. Ten minutes after that, he had won by 1300 votes. At half past the hour Gore had won by about 700 votes, but CNN couldn?t say anything about the changing numbers, having already told their listeners the Florida polls were closed, everybody go on home now. At 20 minutes before 7 pm, FoxNews was saying Gore was leading by about 150 votes, no 130, oh wait 110, new results coming, please stand by? etc. We had to go on inside for the play. I was a Green party guy, but I didn?t like Nader, so I voted for the libertarian Browne that year. I was one of the many Greens for Browne. Not all that many however. Nader carried over 90,000 votes, many of whom may have voted for him by accident, thinking they were voting for Gore. I went out of the play at intermission, about 730 pm Pacific, turned on the radio. FoxNew was reporting that Bush was leading when the Florida polls closed by about 530 votes (out of nearly 6 million votes.) CNN at that time was still celebrating a Gore victory of about 2100 votes. It was then that I realized these voting machines definitely did influence that election, and CNN definitely influenced the election: CNN listeners in western Florida may have gone on home. But Bush supporters listening to FoxNews were perhaps not aware that CNN had declared the Florida polls had closed. They went on to the polling place and voted for Bush. Result: the Bush team scored the winning touchdown while CNN was dancing in the end zone. CNN might have handed that election to Bush. Their credibility took a huge hit, FoxNews soon overtook them as the number 1 news source. The consequences were enormous. In the 2000 election, America compromised confidence in election integrity in exchange for? speed. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Thu Jan 14 19:03:23 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 11:03:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> On 2021-1-14 08:32, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > Eh, I can?t see anything in the modern conservative?s agenda > which requires authoritarianism. Well there's the campaign to shut down immigration and foreign trade. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 14 19:44:31 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 11:44:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> Message-ID: <004f01d6eaad$ae10b2a0$0a3217e0$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On 2021-1-14 08:32, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> Eh, I can?t see anything in the modern conservative?s agenda which > requires authoritarianism. >...Well there's the campaign to shut down immigration and foreign trade. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org _______________________________________________ Oh, OK I interpreted authoritarianism as having to do with control of US citizens. What do modern conservatives have on that? Anton the two areas you outlined are trade protectionism, which doesn't really have a clear left/right split from what I can tell. This is an interesting question however, for we are going into a time when a lot of cars will likely be going to all-electric, which means a lot of new manufacturing. Countries where there are few or no environmental protections in place will likely have a market advantage over domestic suppliers. Lead/acid car battery recycling is done largely in Mexico today. It is much lower cost there. As we go into the age of all-electric cars, that might become one of the most important areas of all: recycling the lithium batteries. The US is likely to solve that by once again exporting the pollutants rather than deal with them here. There are plenty of greens who argue it is better to recycle cleanly here than to recycle elsewhere dirty. spike From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 14 20:27:07 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 12:27:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] dang, forgot Message-ID: <001201d6eab3$a155d210$e4017630$@rainier66.com> OK so this guy lost a quarter of a billion dollars because he forgot his BitCoin password: https://heraldsheets.com/former-ripple-cto-stefan-thomas-cannot-access-his-b itcoin-wallet-containing-7002-btc-worth-231-milion/ This brings up an interesting question. The value of currency is inherently controlled by supply and demand. We see what is happening to demand: plenty of people want some of that, for perfectly understandable reasons. Now we know that 7000 bitcoins are permanently out of circulation forever. That looks to me like it would increase every other bitcoin's value because the demand didn't change, only the supply did. Surely there are plenty of others who have a bitcoin purse behind a password they can't recall. And plenty of bitcoin holders who mined a few of these back in the day, then pretty much forgot all about them, treating it like a game, and now can't recover them or don't know what happened to them. We mighta treated all the bitcoins as if they had the potential to go into circulation when really an unknown fraction of them might have been lost by something as simple as people not telling anyone their password (understandable) then dying unexpectedly. Alternative: a prole with a few thousand bitcoins could go on the news and tell everyone that he forgot his password, quarter of a billion BC presumably lost, price goes up, he sells short, miraculously remembers his password, sells his BCs, covers his short, makes a buttload. That trick might work only once, but as far as I know, no one has done it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Thu Jan 14 21:00:40 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 13:00:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <004f01d6eaad$ae10b2a0$0a3217e0$@rainier66.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> <004f01d6eaad$ae10b2a0$0a3217e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <9f8a09c5-0843-850e-4551-4973bcf1ae71@pobox.com> Spike: >>> Eh, I can?t see anything in the modern conservative?s agenda >>> which requires authoritarianism. Anton: >> Well there's the campaign to shut down immigration >> and foreign trade. Spike: > Oh, OK I interpreted authoritarianism as having to do with control > of US citizens. What do modern conservatives have on that? You can't prevent US citizens from buying foreign goods or hiring foreign labor without constraining the activities of US citizens. > Anton the two areas you outlined are trade protectionism, which > doesn't really have a clear left/right split from what I can tell. The red hat brigade seem to think it has. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 14 21:14:31 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 13:14:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <9f8a09c5-0843-850e-4551-4973bcf1ae71@pobox.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> <004f01d6eaad$ae10b2a0$0a3217e0$@rainier66.com> <9f8a09c5-0843-850e-4551-4973bcf1ae71@pobox.com> Message-ID: <001f01d6eaba$4b245fe0$e16d1fa0$@rainier66.com> >...> On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat >>... Anton the two areas you outlined are trade protectionism, which > doesn't really have a clear left/right split from what I can tell. >...The red hat brigade seem to think it has. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org _______________________________________________ OK Anton I will take your word on that one. I am not up to speed on what the red hat crowd is doing. Regarding not knowing what the red hat crowd is doing: that is one of the most worrisome aspects of Twitter's actions with the account suspensions. We recently learned that hitting the mute button on Zoom does not turn off one's camera. Now we realize that muting a group turns off theirs in a sense: If one has no voice on a forum, there is no reason to leave ones ears or eyes there either. We now don't know what the red hat crowd is doing or where they went. I don't think they went away however. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 14 21:17:26 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 08:17:26 +1100 Subject: [ExI] dang, forgot In-Reply-To: <001201d6eab3$a155d210$e4017630$@rainier66.com> References: <001201d6eab3$a155d210$e4017630$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 at 07:28, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > OK so this guy lost a quarter of a billion dollars because he forgot his > BitCoin password: > > > > > https://heraldsheets.com/former-ripple-cto-stefan-thomas-cannot-access-his-bitcoin-wallet-containing-7002-btc-worth-231-milion/ > > > > This brings up an interesting question. The value of currency is > inherently controlled by supply and demand. We see what is happening to > demand: plenty of people want some of that, for perfectly understandable > reasons. Now we know that 7000 bitcoins are permanently out of circulation > forever. That looks to me like it would increase every other bitcoin?s > value because the demand didn?t change, only the supply did. > > > > Surely there are plenty of others who have a bitcoin purse behind a > password they can?t recall. And plenty of bitcoin holders who mined a few > of these back in the day, then pretty much forgot all about them, treating > it like a game, and now can?t recover them or don?t know what happened to > them. We mighta treated all the bitcoins as if they had the potential to > go into circulation when really an unknown fraction of them might have been > lost by something as simple as people not telling anyone their password > (understandable) then dying unexpectedly. > > > > Alternative: a prole with a few thousand bitcoins could go on the news and > tell everyone that he forgot his password, quarter of a billion BC > presumably lost, price goes up, he sells short, miraculously remembers his > password, sells his BCs, covers his short, makes a buttload. > > > > That trick might work only once, but as far as I know, no one has done it. > It wouldn't work because there is a total supply of about 18 million bitcoins (with an ultimate maximum of 21 million) and no-one controls more than about 1 million, which are in the wallet of their creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Losing a few thousand wouldn't make much difference to the price. However, if the coins started to move from the Satoshi Nakamoto wallet, that might crash the price, because there would be a fear that these coins, which have never moved since their creation, might flood the market. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 14 21:34:31 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 13:34:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] dang, forgot In-Reply-To: References: <001201d6eab3$a155d210$e4017630$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003801d6eabd$0bb506e0$231f14a0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] dang, forgot On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 at 07:28, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: ? >>?Alternative: a prole with a few thousand bitcoins could go on the news and tell everyone that he forgot his password, quarter of a billion BC presumably lost, price goes up, he sells short, miraculously remembers his password, sells his BCs, covers his short, makes a buttload. ? >?It wouldn't work because there is a total supply of about 18 million bitcoins (with an ultimate maximum of 21 million) and no-one controls more than about 1 million, which are in the wallet of their creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Losing a few thousand wouldn't make much difference to the price. However, if the coins started to move from the Satoshi Nakamoto wallet, that might crash the price, because there would be a fear that these coins, which have never moved since their creation, might flood the market. -- Stathis Papaioannou Owww, dang, I can?t corner the market on BC this week. What do you figure is up with Satoshi? Never turned loose of any of his BC? Why not? Independently wealthy? Perhaps his disc crashed and he wouldn?t tell anyone? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 14 22:16:53 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 14:16:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] we will know in a few days Message-ID: <005001d6eac2$f75535c0$e5ffa140$@rainier66.com> This is a worrisome signal. Of the ten leading countries for covid vaccinations, five have temporarily halted. Israel is at about 25% having gotten a single dose: A week ago they were above 20%. But the new case rate is still really high there: In a few days we should be seeing that new case number level off and head down, ja? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 40746 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 30221 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 14 22:20:29 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:20:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <001f01d6eaba$4b245fe0$e16d1fa0$@rainier66.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> <004f01d6eaad$ae10b2a0$0a3217e0$@rainier66.com> <9f8a09c5-0843-850e-4551-4973bcf1ae71@pobox.com> <001f01d6eaba$4b245fe0$e16d1fa0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Who is the red hat crowd? My ex-wife joined that. Their founder wrote a poem that said 'When I am old I will wear purple, with a red hat.' And so a lot of little old ladies formed a club in which they wear that. A good example of not understanding the poem, which was about a mild sort of nonconformism, mixing those two colors. So what do they do? All wear the same thing, totally violating the spirit of the poem. Now - what's this new red hat group? bill w On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 3:18 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >...> On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat > > > >>... Anton the two areas you outlined are trade protectionism, which > > doesn't really have a clear left/right split from what I can tell. > > >...The red hat brigade seem to think it has. > > -- > *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org > _______________________________________________ > > > OK Anton I will take your word on that one. I am not up to speed on what > the red hat crowd is doing. > > Regarding not knowing what the red hat crowd is doing: that is one of the > most worrisome aspects of Twitter's actions with the account suspensions. > We recently learned that hitting the mute button on Zoom does not turn off > one's camera. Now we realize that muting a group turns off theirs in a > sense: If one has no voice on a forum, there is no reason to leave ones > ears or eyes there either. We now don't know what the red hat crowd is > doing or where they went. I don't think they went away however. > > 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 moulton at moulton.com Thu Jan 14 22:47:15 2021 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 14:47:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> Message-ID: <33a4eef6-54c4-f93f-856a-d2bb686e8baa@moulton.com> On 1/14/21 11:03 AM, Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat wrote: > On 2021-1-14 08:32, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> Eh, I can?t see anything in the modern conservative?s agenda >> which requires authoritarianism. > > Well there's the campaign to shut down immigration and foreign trade. > Anton I suggest you add 1. Access to abortion like any other medical procedure 2. LGBT+ rights particularly rights of trans 3. Same sex marriage (related to 2; listed separately for clarity) to your list of authoritarian positions commonly held by many persons who self-identify as conservative. Fred -- F. C. Moulton moulton at moulton.com From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 15 00:00:53 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:00:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] west virginia leads... was: RE: Immaculate Election Message-ID: <008a01d6ead1$7eb1bc10$7c153430$@rainier66.com> >?Now - what's this new red hat group? bill w BillW, it might be the non-conformist little old ladies club, but I interpreted it as the MAGA hat crowd. On a brighter note, wooohoooo! West Virginia wins at something. It has the highest percentage of its citizens receiving at least one dose of vaccine: Overall US average is about 3.3 percent today, which is perhaps better than it sounds: the first doses went to the highest risk of transmitting the virus: the medics. Next to be prioritized are the geezers, so I will be in that group. After that, you younger people can line up. Way to go, West Virginia! Honorable mention North Dakota and South Dakota. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 31106 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bronto at pobox.com Fri Jan 15 00:18:29 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:18:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] west virginia leads... was: RE: Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <008a01d6ead1$7eb1bc10$7c153430$@rainier66.com> References: <008a01d6ead1$7eb1bc10$7c153430$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-14 16:00, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > Next to be prioritized are the geezers, so I will be in that group. I hear that in California "over 75" is a tier. You and I (assuming the rules are similar here) have some time to wait. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Fri Jan 15 00:28:59 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:28:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <33a4eef6-54c4-f93f-856a-d2bb686e8baa@moulton.com> References: <00dc01d6ea10$a1764f70$e462ee50$@rainier66.com> <0892f1ae-5adc-8c82-834d-9b67b55f225d@pobox.com> <012201d6ea1d$d4485670$7cd90350$@rainier66.com> <002c01d6ea8b$7c6a18d0$753e4a70$@rainier66.com> <008a01d6ea92$df554300$9dffc900$@rainier66.com> <8df436db-c8e9-f12b-900a-ae90b7cb3b53@pobox.com> <33a4eef6-54c4-f93f-856a-d2bb686e8baa@moulton.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-14 14:47, F. C. Moulton via extropy-chat wrote: > I suggest you add > > 1. Access to abortion like any other medical procedure > 2. LGBT+ rights particularly rights of trans > 3. Same sex marriage (related to 2; listed separately for clarity) > > to your list of authoritarian positions commonly held > by many persons who self-identify as conservative. They would say the last two are resistance to the authoritarian Left's insistence that everyone pretend their delusions are reality. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 15 00:38:48 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:38:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] west virginia leads... was: RE: Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <008a01d6ead1$7eb1bc10$7c153430$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009f01d6ead6$ca2dfa00$5e89ee00$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] west virginia leads... was: RE: Immaculate Election On 2021-1-14 16:00, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > Next to be prioritized are the geezers, so I will be in that group. I hear that in California "over 75" is a tier. You and I (assuming the rules are similar here) have some time to wait. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org _______________________________________________ HA! I can pass for 75, easy. This is no exaggeration: the pants I wear are 70 years old. I found them Korean War army surplus, olive green wool field uniform trousers. They are comfortable, durable, cheap (19 bucks!) and you get to look like a Korean War soldier, free. I know the language too: you just talk like Bogart did in... well, everything Bogart ever played in. I don't know why they consider him such a great actor: he didn't act at all. He just did himself in every film. Same with me: I can do geezer with the pros. So I just get up my army surplus pants, strike up the Bogey, don't bother with the ID (they assume I am too old to drive and don't expect one) and make comments such as "Is this where a feller goes to get one of them Chinese Flu shots?" You know they would totally fall for it. I will be sooooo outta the woods on this covid business. Anton thanks for the info: I assumed over 60 defined geezer in California. spike From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 15 05:51:42 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2021 21:51:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fw: Re: Adobe Flash Player is no more In-Reply-To: References: <1209054488.88.1610442881629@wamui-bison.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: It is the 14th, and Flash still plays in Chrome over here. On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 7:33 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Today's the day! > > Adobe Flash Player EOL General Information Page > > Since Adobe will no longer be supporting Flash Player after December > 31, 2020 and Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash > Player beginning January 12, 2021, Adobe strongly recommends all users > immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems. > > > BillK > > On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 at 15:23, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > It's well after the 1st, and I'm still getting the warning about Flash > going away after December 2020. Flash still works when I try it. > > > > On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 2:00 AM Terry W. Colvin via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> > >> This software went away when the software did its' kill switch routine > >> on the 1st. I use two gadgets/widgets at my ighome.com personalized > >> homepage that stopped working. These are Accuweather and Simple > Calendar. > >> I also store Bookmarks on the internal pop-up which I use to quickly go > >> to and/or restore hosed links. > >> > >> Google Chrome OS has a 'Pepper Flash' that allows Accuweather and the > >> Simple Calendar to display. That should be good for another two years. > >> > >> This is just FYI. > >> > >> Terry > >> . > >> . > >> . > >> > >> > >> -----Forwarded Message----- > >> >From: "James H.G. Redekop" <> > >> >Sent: Jan 11, 2021 12:38 PM > >> >To: David Vincent <> > >> >Cc: Skeptic List > >> >Subject: Re: [skeptic] Adobe Flash Player is no more > >> > > >> >Flash Veteran Mr. Weebl (most famous for Badger Badger Badger) has > >> >released this tribute to Flash, with tributes to many of the most > >> >famous/infamous Flash animations over the years: > >> > > >> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBPH6O68UY4 > >> > > >> >_______________________________________________ > >> >skeptic mailing list > >> >skeptic at linuxmafia.com > >> >http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic > >> >To reach the listadmin, mail rick at linuxmafia.com > >> _______________________________________________ > >> 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 pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 15 07:28:39 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 07:28:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Fw: Re: Adobe Flash Player is no more In-Reply-To: References: <1209054488.88.1610442881629@wamui-bison.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 at 05:54, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > It is the 14th, and Flash still plays in Chrome over here. > _______________________________________________ Yes, so far you can still allow Flash to run in each specific case. Future versions of browsers may remove that option. See: Quote: As of December 31, 2020, Adobe no longer supports Flash Player. As of January 12, 2021, Flash content is blocked. Legacy solution to enable Flash in Chrome: Go to Settings > Flash and toggle on Ask First. For individual sites: Go to the site, select the padlock in the address bar, and click Site Settings > Flash. Choose Allow or Block. ------------------- BillK From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 15 09:30:38 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 09:30:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] west virginia leads... was: RE: Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <009f01d6ead6$ca2dfa00$5e89ee00$@rainier66.com> References: <008a01d6ead1$7eb1bc10$7c153430$@rainier66.com> <009f01d6ead6$ca2dfa00$5e89ee00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 at 00:41, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Anton thanks for the info: I assumed over 60 defined geezer in California. > > spike > _______________________________________________ Good News - Previous COVID infection (assuming survival) gives protection. So the scare figures of millions of 'cases' might not be so bad after all. Quote: Thu 14 Jan 2021 People who recover from coronavirus have a similar level of protection against future infection as those who receive a Covid vaccine ? at least for the first five months, research suggests. A Public Health England (PHE) study of more than 20,000 healthcare workers found that immunity acquired from an earlier Covid infection provided 83% protection against reinfection for at least 20 weeks. ------------------- Bad News - 1) Some people do have a bad reaction to the vaccine. 2) If COVID mutates rapidly (as seems to be happening) then there may need to be an annual vaccination, like the flu jab every winter. BillK From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jan 15 17:06:30 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 09:06:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9E65F845-C434-4638-95A4-5D7C39958C98@gmail.com> On Jan 14, 2021, at 2:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > Who is the red hat crowd? My ex-wife joined that. Their founder wrote a poem that said 'When I am old I will wear purple, with a red hat.' And so a lot of little old ladies formed a club in which they wear that. > > A good example of not understanding the poem, which was about a mild sort of nonconformism, mixing those two colors. So what do they do? All wear the same thing, totally violating the spirit of the poem. > > Now - what's this new red hat group? bill w Trump supporters who sport the MAGA hat. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 15 18:50:04 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 12:50:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] excerpt Message-ID: >From Nick Harkaway's 'Gnomon': Dogs and people; "If the dog thinks you are the boss, you will be fine. You pay attention to the dog; you feed the dog; you exercise the dog; you own the dog. It's your dog. However, if the dog thinks you are weak, it will fuck with you. Dogs are not cosy. Dogs are dogs. They are animals. They need clear hierarchies or they get confused and when they're confused they piss on things, bite things, and mate with things until they get less confused That's all. That's what it is. There's just you and the dog and one of you is on top" And then he said "Actually, it's not all that different with people" and I knew he was right. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 15 20:55:03 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 14:55:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] labels Message-ID: In clinical psychology, at least in my time, a therapist never applied a label to a client, and of course never revealed one to a client. Problem: they will try to live up to the label. To the therapist it becomes a stereotype and they will tend to see things that are not there. Applying a label to something becomes a part of that something, like a person. Label yourself politically, say right, and you will be attracted to right news and right people and so on. And become more right. I have seen this in this group: people asking themselves if they were still libertarian, since they have changed somewhat from years ago. People tend to want to be consistent - if not = cognitive dissonance. But parts of your beliefs slip away and are replaced by others not as similar to the whole as the gone ones. So you may ask: what am I now? Do I need a new label? I find myself agreeing sometimes with people who have different labels. Am I coming apart at the seams? You noticed that I am a victim here. Lately taking online tests, asking questions, finding a difference between left and Leftists. Ambiguity increases: I read 'left' in a post and wonder if they are talking about me or about Leftists. Can we even talk without using labels? Can we get away from the 'us and them' nature of labels? Blaming something on the left raises my ire. But I do not know exactly who they are blaming. It would be much more helpful if the position attacked would be spelled out rather than a label used. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 16 04:35:46 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2021 20:35:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] article by anders Message-ID: <003c01d6ebc1$0fa5ade0$2ef109a0$@rainier66.com> Anders Sandberg has written a wicked cool article for the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210113-the-megascale-structures-that-hu mans-could-one-day-build spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jan 16 15:13:20 2021 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 10:13:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] labels In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: How can we attack a position without using a label (word) for it? Everything is labels, every noun is a label. Can you explain a position without using any labels? SR > On Jan 15, 2021, at 3:57 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > In clinical psychology, at least in my time, a therapist never applied a label to a client, and of course never revealed one to a client. Problem: they will try to live up to the label. To the therapist it becomes a stereotype and they will tend to see things that are not there. > > Applying a label to something becomes a part of that something, like a person. Label yourself politically, say right, and you will be attracted to right news and right people and so on. And become more right. > > I have seen this in this group: people asking themselves if they were still libertarian, since they have changed somewhat from years ago. > > People tend to want to be consistent - if not = cognitive dissonance. But parts of your beliefs slip away and are replaced by others not as similar to the whole as the gone ones. So you may ask: what am I now? Do I need a new label? I find myself agreeing sometimes with people who have different labels. Am I coming apart at the seams? > > You noticed that I am a victim here. Lately taking online tests, asking questions, finding a difference between left and Leftists. Ambiguity increases: I read 'left' in a post and wonder if they are talking about me or about Leftists. Can we even talk without using labels? Can we get away from the 'us and them' nature of labels? Blaming something on the left raises my ire. But I do not know exactly who they are blaming. It would be much more helpful if the position attacked would be spelled out rather than a label used. 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 sparge at gmail.com Sat Jan 16 17:31:44 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 12:31:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] labels In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 10:15 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > How can we attack a position without using a label (word) for it? > Everything is labels, every noun is a label. > I believe the intended usage of "label" here is "A descriptive term; an epithet." > Can you explain a position without using any labels? > Sure, you can explain your position(s)/belief(s). That can get wordy. I think it's probably better to stick to self-applied labels because when you pick a label for someone else they may disagree or consider it offensive. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 16 17:52:07 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 09:52:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] labels In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <013f01d6ec30$4f180d50$ed4827f0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat ? Can you explain a position without using any labels? >?Sure, you can explain your position(s)/belief(s). That can get wordy. I think it's probably better to stick to self-applied labels because when you pick a label for someone else they may disagree or consider it offensive. -Dave Ja, well said Dave. It isn?t just that: in a changing world most people are a mixture of labels and can even legitimately have ones that are so incompatible as to be nearly mutually exclusive. Human behavior doesn?t simplify to categories. The notion of a political spectrum is broken beyond salvage. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sat Jan 16 21:22:26 2021 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 13:22:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust Message-ID: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> As many of the long time list members know, I am a very vocal opponent of racism and intolerance. I truly do believe that genetic and cultural diversity is a very important hedge against extinction and gives tremendous competitive advantages to diverse open societies. But I am also a huge proponent of the U.S. Constitution and the principles of individual liberty on which it was founded. That is why I have to weigh in on the events of the past two weeks. While I decry the storming of Capitol by Q-Anon and alt-right extremists in an attempted coup, and I support the investigation and arrest of those who were responsible, I am very much against the unilateral attack on free speech by big tech. I was horrified to learn that 3 rich guys could decide to almost instantaneously destroy a promising young social media startup with over 30 employees and 10 million users at the touch of a button. I was reminded of Obi Wan's line from Star Wars regarding the destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." It should terrorize anybody who has ever felt the slightest stir of the American Dream to grow a small business into a successful company, that Amazon could pull the plug on a small business so easily. So why are not the Feds investigating this? Is that not collusion by a cartel to monopolize an entire sector of a market that SHOULD be free? By the letter of the law of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Parler did nothing wrong and cannot be held liable for the content generated by its users. Who gave a small cadre of billionaires the right to decide what constitutes acceptable speech on their own platforms AND everyone else's? Stuart LaForge From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 16 21:52:25 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 13:52:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <000801d6ec51$e175ace0$a46106a0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat >...So why are not the Feds investigating this? Is that not collusion by a cartel to monopolize an entire sector of a market that SHOULD be free? Stuart LaForge _______________________________________________ Stuart it should give us all a reason to ponder. As in Orwell's classic, anyone here can be disappeared. Software could be written to erase any attempt to communicate online. Without an online virtual existence, it is unclear we have any existence at all. Google and Twitter have demonstrated they hold the power to our existence, and will use it if we step out of line. spike From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 16 21:52:36 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 13:52:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: The companies do not appear to have collaborated on this. Rather, they independently reacted to the same thing, that was itself not coordinated with them. That is all they need to avoid breaking the antitrust regulations. On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 1:24 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > As many of the long time list members know, I am a very vocal opponent > of racism and intolerance. I truly do believe that genetic and > cultural diversity is a very important hedge against extinction and > gives tremendous competitive advantages to diverse open societies. But > I am also a huge proponent of the U.S. Constitution and the principles > of individual liberty on which it was founded. That is why I have to > weigh in on the events of the past two weeks. > > While I decry the storming of Capitol by Q-Anon and alt-right > extremists in an attempted coup, and I support the investigation and > arrest of those who were responsible, I am very much against the > unilateral attack on free speech by big tech. I was horrified to learn > that 3 rich guys could decide to almost instantaneously destroy a > promising young social media startup with over 30 employees and 10 > million users at the touch of a button. > > I was reminded of Obi Wan's line from Star Wars regarding the > destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star: "I felt a great disturbance > in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror > and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." > It should terrorize anybody who has ever felt the slightest stir of > the American Dream to grow a small business into a successful company, > that Amazon could pull the plug on a small business so easily. > > So why are not the Feds investigating this? Is that not collusion by a > cartel to monopolize an entire sector of a market that SHOULD be free? > By the letter of the law of Section 230 of the Communications Decency > Act, Parler did nothing wrong and cannot be held liable for the > content generated by its users. Who gave a small cadre of billionaires > the right to decide what constitutes acceptable speech on their own > platforms AND everyone else's? > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 16 22:07:28 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 14:07:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <000e01d6ec53$fae28c00$f0a7a400$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust >?The companies do not appear to have collaborated on this. Rather, they independently reacted to the same thing, that was itself not coordinated with them. >?That is all they need to avoid breaking the antitrust regulations. Ja, and they already have everything they need to break us. They can break their competitors easily. All along with thought it was going to be Big Brother to abuse power. Orwell saw everything, but didn?t see this coming. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 16 22:45:36 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 14:45:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <000e01d6ec53$fae28c00$f0a7a400$@rainier66.com> References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <000e01d6ec53$fae28c00$f0a7a400$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002001d6ec59$4f1159f0$ed340dd0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com >?Ja, and they already have everything they need to break us. ?Orwell saw everything, but didn?t see this coming. spike Google and Twitter can introduce a bug (whoopsies!) to make sure users can?t find references to a story they don?t want told. They can redirect searchers to sites which tell it they way they want it told. Or memory-hole it altogether. Between them, Google, Twitter and Facebook can steer how world thinks by controlling the input. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 16 22:57:30 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 16:57:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <002001d6ec59$4f1159f0$ed340dd0$@rainier66.com> References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <000e01d6ec53$fae28c00$f0a7a400$@rainier66.com> <002001d6ec59$4f1159f0$ed340dd0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Google, Twitter and Facebook can steer how the world thinks by controlling the input. spike That would be true if those were the only sources and they colluded. But they aren't and they won't. Then there are whistleblowers. And Google's motto Don't Be Evil. One can go too far with Orwell. In his books the state has supreme and absolute power. I suppose that is possible, but highly improbable. bill w On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 4:47 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > > > > > > >?Ja, and they already have everything they need to break us. ?Orwell saw > everything, but didn?t see this coming. spike > > > > > > Google and Twitter can introduce a bug (whoopsies!) to make sure users > can?t find references to a story they don?t want told. They can redirect > searchers to sites which tell it they way they want it told. Or > memory-hole it altogether. Between them, Google, Twitter and Facebook can > steer how world thinks by controlling the input. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 16 23:12:53 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 15:12:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <000e01d6ec53$fae28c00$f0a7a400$@rainier66.com> <002001d6ec59$4f1159f0$ed340dd0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004001d6ec5d$1e8b5610$5ba20230$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat >?Then there are whistleblowers? Ja, fortunately we have them. >?And Google's motto Don't Be Evil? That was their former motto. It was removed in April 2018. >?One can go too far with Orwell? bill w I haven?t seen that. I have seen plenty of not going far enough with Orwell, far more than plenty of that. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 16 23:15:30 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 17:15:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] president's cabinet Message-ID: It will now contain a science advisor who is a geneticist and mathematician, and director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. The post had been vacant for 18 months. This is now a cabinet level position. I just hope all of this is not going to be like putting Humpty Dumpty together again. The EPA was nearly broken. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 01:20:11 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 19:20:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] gadget- pie in the sky? Message-ID: OK techies, what's with this thing? Invented by Tesla, they say. Fraud? bill w https://electric-saver.com/v3/?sub1=102fa4337589c90800b4946592a2da -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 01:26:31 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 20:26:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] gadget- pie in the sky? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's a scam. On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 8:21 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > OK techies, what's with this thing? Invented by Tesla, they say. Fraud? > bill w > > https://electric-saver.com/v3/?sub1=102fa4337589c90800b4946592a2da > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 17 02:28:48 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 18:28:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] gadget- pie in the sky? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006001d6ec78$7d033080$77099180$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] gadget- pie in the sky? OK techies, what's with this thing? Invented by Tesla, they say. Fraud? bill w https://electric-saver.com/v3/?sub1=102fa4337589c90800b4946592a2da 100% reliable rule on this kind of thing BillW: any ad which has some goofy comment like ?Power companies are scared?? or ?Doctors hope you never find out about?? or ?Big oil has tried to stop this by buying up the patents?? and so on, you already know what kind of people those ads are aiming for. This particular ad is absurd of course, but even if it had made a reasonable claim, that scared companies business is your big tell. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 02:28:33 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 13:28:33 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 17 Jan 2021 at 08:23, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > As many of the long time list members know, I am a very vocal opponent > of racism and intolerance. I truly do believe that genetic and > cultural diversity is a very important hedge against extinction and > gives tremendous competitive advantages to diverse open societies. But > I am also a huge proponent of the U.S. Constitution and the principles > of individual liberty on which it was founded. That is why I have to > weigh in on the events of the past two weeks. > > While I decry the storming of Capitol by Q-Anon and alt-right > extremists in an attempted coup, and I support the investigation and > arrest of those who were responsible, I am very much against the > unilateral attack on free speech by big tech. I was horrified to learn > that 3 rich guys could decide to almost instantaneously destroy a > promising young social media startup with over 30 employees and 10 > million users at the touch of a button. > > I was reminded of Obi Wan's line from Star Wars regarding the > destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star: "I felt a great disturbance > in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror > and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." > It should terrorize anybody who has ever felt the slightest stir of > the American Dream to grow a small business into a successful company, > that Amazon could pull the plug on a small business so easily. > > So why are not the Feds investigating this? Is that not collusion by a > cartel to monopolize an entire sector of a market that SHOULD be free? > By the letter of the law of Section 230 of the Communications Decency > Act, Parler did nothing wrong and cannot be held liable for the > content generated by its users. Who gave a small cadre of billionaires > the right to decide what constitutes acceptable speech on their own > platforms AND everyone else's? > Since they are private companies, they can do anything they want unless there is a law preventing them. -- Stathis Papaioannou Virus-free. www.avast.com <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 17 02:39:46 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 18:39:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] hot fire fail Message-ID: <006e01d6ec7a$056bbb80$10433280$@rainier66.com> Dang, the NASA RS-25 hot fire test was a fail: https://spacenews.com/green-run-hotfire-test-ends-early/ Capitalist Musk is eating the government's lunch. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnh at vt11.net Sun Jan 17 04:47:01 2021 From: jnh at vt11.net (Jordan) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 23:47:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] gadget- pie in the sky? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20210117044701.GA31855@vt11.net> On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 07:20:11PM -0600, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > OK techies, what's with this thing? Invented by Tesla, they say. Fraud? > bill w > > https://electric-saver.com/v3/?sub1=102fa4337589c90800b4946592a2da It is a fraud as you surmised, but more specifically, although they don't directly claim so, based on the ad's voltage/current waveform graphs this appears to be a variant of the "power factor correction" (PFC) scam that's been going around for a while. Details here: http://www.nlcpr.com/Deceptions1.php Power Factor Correction can be genuinely useful in a few specific situations, such as when operating off-grid from a generator or a solar/wind/battery inverter system. I recently upgraded such a system to get about 20% more battery-charging power out of a small Honda generator, by raising power-factor from 0.65 to 0.98. But even there, PFC circuitry needs to either be built into the load being powered, or have sophisticated sensing and control circuitry, like what the power utilities themselves use for this purpose on long power lines, at substations, and at or near large industrial facilities. Even in a rare case where PFC correction would be of benefit, the scam device is far too small to have more than a negligible effect. I'd guess they wired some simple arrangement of capacitors and maybe inductors directly across the line, without any sensing or control, just enough to show some minute effect on an oscilloscope or meter (but no real power savings, for reasons mentioned in the link above) to give the scammers a small amount of plausible deniability. Or, it may not even be that, doing nothing more than powering its status LED. -- Jordan. From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 12:21:23 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 07:21:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 4:24 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > So why are not the Feds investigating this? How do you know that they aren't? > Is that not collusion by a > cartel to monopolize an entire sector of a market that SHOULD be free? > Until you have evidence of collusion it's best to assume that these companies were reacting to the same problems with Parler. By the letter of the law of Section 230 of the Communications Decency > Act, Parler did nothing wrong and cannot be held liable for the > content generated by its users. Section 230 doesn't mean Parler did nothing wrong, it just means they can't be held legally responsible for their content. Section 230 might have protected Amazon, Google, et al, but that doesn't mean they're compelled to continue supporting a platform they consider not worthy of their support. > Who gave a small cadre of billionaires > the right to decide what constitutes acceptable speech on their own > platforms AND everyone else's? > They don't control "everyone else", only those who use their services. If Parler didn't want to allow the possibility of their services getting yanked, they could have bought their own servers. They still could have had trouble finding an ISP that would support them. But Parler wasn't particularly well run and didn't appear destined for a long run. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Sun Jan 17 15:58:40 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 16:58:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> > On 17 Jan 2021, at 00:15, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > Message: 7 > Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2021 13:22:26 -0800 > From: Stuart LaForge > > To: ExI Chat > > Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust > Message-ID: > <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW at secure199.inmotionhosting.com > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; DelSp=Yes > > > As many of the long time list members know, I am a very vocal opponent > of racism and intolerance. I truly do believe that genetic and > cultural diversity is a very important hedge against extinction and > gives tremendous competitive advantages to diverse open societies. But > I am also a huge proponent of the U.S. Constitution and the principles > of individual liberty on which it was founded. That is why I have to > weigh in on the events of the past two weeks. > > While I decry the storming of Capitol by Q-Anon and alt-right > extremists in an attempted coup, and I support the investigation and > arrest of those who were responsible, I am very much against the > unilateral attack on free speech by big tech. Free speech in the US constitution is protected against government interference/control, it doesn?t guarantee you access to someone's private media distribution systems. Companies have "terms of service", and "strategic partnerships". If you break the ToS you can be kicked out. If association with you harms their brand image they can break their partnership agreements for "strategic" business reasons. Interestingly, because electromagnetic spectrum is a public resource which broadcast TV, radio, phone services have bought there are some ?public access channels" which received (I guess they still receive?) money from the rent/sale of this spectrum. Bashing this was, of course, a favorite ?vote pi?ata? for the right. > I was horrified to learn > that 3 rich guys could decide to almost instantaneously destroy a > promising young social media startup with over 30 employees and 10 > million users at the touch of a button. If you believe that a company has monopolistic power (or duopoly or trio-poly along with some others), it might be time to split up or regulate that/those companies. Unfortunately the logical argument falls on its face, if they don?t give you a megaphone is your freedom to speak actually infringed? Clearly not. (Thought experiment: Did people 200 years ago lack free speech because they lacked access to TV/internet/radio? Clearly not.) If they can block a new entrant to the market from setting up, then they are a monopoly and free market protections apply. > I was reminded of Obi Wan's line from Star Wars regarding the > destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star: "I felt a great disturbance > in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror > and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." > It should terrorize anybody who has ever felt the slightest stir of > the American Dream to grow a small business into a successful company, > that Amazon could pull the plug on a small business so easily. These large internet companies control the means of production. So, if small businesses and individuals want to prosper, they should seize control of the means of production. Fortunately, computers and bandwidth are cheap. Go for it! Unfortunately, you can be blocked by the infrastructure/bandwidth providers because they don?t have to adhere to ?Net Neutrality??.even though their infrastructure is built in and crosses public land. > So why are not the Feds investigating this? Is that not collusion by a > cartel to monopolize an entire sector of a market that SHOULD be free? > By the letter of the law of Section 230 of the Communications Decency > Act, Parler did nothing wrong and cannot be held liable for the > content generated by its users. If we had a strong federal national ID law, and people could be readily identified because their online comments were associated with that ID, we wouldn?t need ?Section 230?. If you issued a death threat, or organized a coup, some officers of the law would show up and lock you up. There would be no need for liability protection for the large companies. > Who gave a small cadre of billionaires > the right to decide what constitutes acceptable speech on their own > platforms AND everyone else's? Well, you?ve said it yourself. They should decide what goes on their platform, and Parler?s ?platform? was also just a thin layer on top of another platform. > Stuart LaForge And here I perform many and intricate genuflection towards our most munificent ( and not at ominously named) censor ?SPIKE?! Hail Spike of the Mighty Clicks! (Who can with one click, or perhaps several, decide: a) if this post goes through, b) if I can remain a member of this list, c) the second law of thermodynamics) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 17 16:13:04 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 08:13:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> Message-ID: <005b01d6eceb$a41b2380$ec516a80$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Omar Rahman via extropy-chat ? >?And here I perform many and intricate genuflection towards our most munificent ( and not at ominously named) censor ?SPIKE?! Hail Spike of the Mighty Clicks! Hi Omar, thanks for the worship. Thou art too kind, humble servant. But I never used that power. Now the notion is outdated anyway, since I resigned from moderating ExI several months ago. If I wasn?t going to use the power, there is no point in having it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 17 16:45:02 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 08:45:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <005b01d6eceb$a41b2380$ec516a80$@rainier66.com> References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> <005b01d6eceb$a41b2380$ec516a80$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007901d6ecf0$1ab27ee0$50177ca0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com ? >>? Our most munificent ( and not at ominously named) censor ?SPIKE?! Hail Spike of the Mighty Clicks! >?Hi Omar, thanks for the worship. Thou art too kind, humble servant. But I never used that power. ?spike This brings up an interesting question in general: should completely unmoderated sites exist? ExI was for many years: I didn?t moderate people based on content. That has its drawbacks: good contributors who post high quality valuable posts don?t want to be associated with the kind of content that is allowed on such a site, so they go away. Example: Anders Sandberg. OK suppose a site does moderate based on content. Not everyone will agree on how it is moderated. American society is now at the point where there is no clear place where completely unmoderated material can be posted. This too might be a bad thing, for it gives the moderated platforms too much unaccountable power. I don?t know what the right thing is there, but I am eager to hear ideas. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 16:47:02 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 08:47:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 8:00 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Unfortunately, you can be blocked by the infrastructure/bandwidth > providers because they don?t have to adhere to ?Net Neutrality??.even > though their infrastructure is built in and crosses public land. > Lest anyone forget/not know the nuance: Net Neutrality was a standard that forced ISPs to allow all content to go through equally, regardless of who owned who. Removing that was part of Trump's FCC's staff's priorities, with dreams of corporate media shutting down small, independent, liberal voices. They never imagined the most high-profile use would be when it was turned against their side. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 17 17:28:29 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 09:28:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <007901d6ecf0$1ab27ee0$50177ca0$@rainier66.com> References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> <005b01d6eceb$a41b2380$ec516a80$@rainier66.com> <007901d6ecf0$1ab27ee0$50177ca0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009401d6ecf6$2c558380$85008a80$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com ? >?OK suppose a site does moderate based on content. Not everyone will agree on how it is moderated. spike ? How well I understand the dilemma Twitter, Facebook and Google found themselves in. Filtering content becomes a defacto endorsement of all content they let stand. So now, everything you find on those sites is something they think is less scary than the material they disallowed. Everything you find on those sites is material they found less objectionable than a completely unmoderated site. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Sun Jan 17 17:39:25 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 18:39:25 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Spike, Speaking personally, I currently dip into the list once in a while in digest mode and see if something interesting has come up. When I first joined there were many more authors here also. (In fact it was an author friend of mine who told me to subscribe to the list.) In general I post here when I feel I have something to contribute. But sometimes my contributions of the past were to FLAME MIGHTILY IN YODA MODE when others would make absurd claims such as "people of country X have an average IQ of VERY VERY LOW". One internationally published author contacted me after one such exchange to express his dismay and commiserate, and I?m not sure if he is still a list member. I will offer you the paraphrased wisdom of one Mitt Romeny, (who is someone I would never vote for but would have a glass of lemonade with), last week he said in the senate something to the effect that: ?Our duty as leaders is to show these people who have been deluded by conspiracy theories the truth.? (Obviously he is now considered a ?traitor?.) Simple truth telling could be enough. Ridicule is perhaps sometimes the best gift though, because arguing with someone about ?facts" is futile when the ?facts? are actually article of faith. Tyrants and conspiracy theories are quite susceptible to scorn. "OUT PEACE!?, Yoda say, ?Anders Sandberg in Internets search will I." (?Yoda Inversions? speech a delightful exercise is!) > On 17 Jan 2021, at 17:45, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > From: spike at rainier66.com > > > ? > > > >>> ? Our most munificent ( and not at ominously named) censor ?SPIKE?! Hail Spike of the Mighty Clicks! > > > >> ?Hi Omar, thanks for the worship. Thou art too kind, humble servant. But I never used that power. ?spike > > > > This brings up an interesting question in general: should completely unmoderated sites exist? ExI was for many years: I didn?t moderate people based on content. That has its drawbacks: good contributors who post high quality valuable posts don?t want to be associated with the kind of content that is allowed on such a site, so they go away. Example: Anders Sandberg. > > > > OK suppose a site does moderate based on content. Not everyone will agree on how it is moderated. > > > > American society is now at the point where there is no clear place where completely unmoderated material can be posted. This too might be a bad thing, for it gives the moderated platforms too much unaccountable power. > > > > I don?t know what the right thing is there, but I am eager to hear ideas. > > > > spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 17 17:55:02 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 09:55:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00c401d6ecf9$e2188d40$a649a7c0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Omar Rahman via extropy-chat >? Mitt Romeny: ?Our duty as leaders is to show these people who have been deluded by conspiracy theories the truth.? I don?t recall that as a duty of senators or political leaders. But let?s go with it. How do we show the conspiracy people the truth? Consider this claim: the way the last US elections were done cause a large percentage of voters to think cheating was enabled. Note that the claim doesn?t include cheating took place. It claims that a large percentage of voters think that cheating was enabled. How do our leaders propose to show us the truth on that? Omar, what is the truth on that? Shall we reign in the media, so that you can?t just spew disinformation and misinformation? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 17 18:01:36 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 10:01:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-16 13:22, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > I was horrified to learn > that 3 rich guys could decide to almost instantaneously destroy a > promising young social media startup with over 30 employees and 10 > million users at the touch of a button. Raising the question, why doesn't AWS have more competition? I once heard a crack that post-Enron securities regulation had changed the last line of the typical startup's business plan from "and then IPO and we're all millionaires" to "and then we sell out to Google" because going public (selling stock on the public exchanges) had become that much harder. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 17 18:30:23 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 10:30:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-17 08:47, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > Lest anyone forget/not know the nuance: Net Neutrality was a standard > that forced ISPs to allow all content to go through equally, regardless > of who owned who.? Removing that was part of Trump's FCC's staff's > priorities, with dreams of corporate media shutting down small, > independent, liberal voices.? They never imagined the most high-profile > use would be when it was turned against their side. Has it been used against them? Without NN, do packets from AWS or Twitter or Facebook get higher priority in relays? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 17 18:42:08 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 10:42:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> Message-ID: <343de611-952a-600b-a980-d44d26f516bc@pobox.com> On 2021-1-17 07:58, Omar Rahman via extropy-chat wrote: > If we had a strong federal national ID law, and people could be > readily identified because their online comments were associated with > that ID, we wouldn?t need ?Section 230?. Who needs anonymous political speech, eh? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 17 18:50:33 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 10:50:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-17 10:01, Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat wrote: > Raising the question, why doesn't AWS have more competition? Meanwhile the slow death of mailing lists has long bothered me. You all probably know by now that Yahoogroups (which absorbed at least two older hosts of mailing lists) has shut down. Why aren't list servers as common as personal websites? My web host offers WordPress (which I use), MediaWiki (which I can imagine using), Drupal, Piwigo, Joomla, LimeSurvey, ownCloud, but not mailman or anything of the sort. To break the power of Facebook and Twitter we need decentralized versions of them, and for those to work we need the protocols to be widely supported (which may be a chicken-egg problem). We need it to be easy for millions of users to set up their own nodes. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 19:07:16 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 13:07:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <00c401d6ecf9$e2188d40$a649a7c0$@rainier66.com> References: <00c401d6ecf9$e2188d40$a649a7c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Wouldn't a completely unmoderated site feature content that is legally obscene, libelous or slanderous? bill w On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 11:56 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Omar Rahman via extropy-chat > > > > >? Mitt Romeny: ?Our duty as leaders is to show these people who have been > deluded by conspiracy theories the truth.? > > > > I don?t recall that as a duty of senators or political leaders. But let?s > go with it. How do we show the conspiracy people the truth? > > > > Consider this claim: the way the last US elections were done cause a large > percentage of voters to think cheating was enabled. > > > > Note that the claim doesn?t include cheating took place. It claims that a > large percentage of voters think that cheating was enabled. > > > > How do our leaders propose to show us the truth on that? Omar, what is > the truth on that? Shall we reign in the media, so that you can?t just > spew disinformation and misinformation? > > > > 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 Sun Jan 17 19:14:43 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 11:14:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 10:31 AM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 2021-1-17 08:47, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > Lest anyone forget/not know the nuance: Net Neutrality was a standard > > that forced ISPs to allow all content to go through equally, regardless > > of who owned who. Removing that was part of Trump's FCC's staff's > > priorities, with dreams of corporate media shutting down small, > > independent, liberal voices. They never imagined the most high-profile > > use would be when it was turned against their side. > > Has it been used against them? Without NN, do packets from AWS or > Twitter or Facebook get higher priority in relays? > "Them/they" being the conservative legislators in this case, not Amazon/Twitter/Facebook. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 17 19:22:43 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 11:22:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <00c401d6ecf9$e2188d40$a649a7c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001e01d6ed06$21e17a20$65a46e60$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2021 11:07 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust >?Wouldn't a completely unmoderated site feature content that is legally obscene, libelous or slanderous? bill w Sure would. The site would have to make it clear that it filters nothing, even illegal material, then rely on 230 for protection from liability for its content. As it is, the big sites to filter, and consequently I would argue even if they have legal immunity from liability, they carry a defacto endorsement of any material they left on their site. Now Face Book and Twitter functionally endorse everything on there. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 19:23:31 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 13:23:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own Message-ID: "If you don't view yourself as President of all the people, you don't deserve being President of any of the people." from bill W -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 19:38:02 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 19:38:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <00c401d6ecf9$e2188d40$a649a7c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 17 Jan 2021 at 19:10, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Wouldn't a completely unmoderated site feature content that is legally obscene, libelous or slanderous? bill w > > _______________________________________________ Yes, but that's only for starters. Quote: Facebook will pay $52 million to thousands of current and former contract workers who viewed and removed graphic and disturbing posts on the social media platform for a living, and consequently suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a settlement agreement announced on Tuesday between the tech giant and lawyers for the moderators. -------- During that time, she had to sift through a barrage of posts published by some of Facebook's billions of users. The suit said the content included "broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide, and murder." ----------------------- The underbelly of the internet is really, really bad. BillK From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 17 19:41:49 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 11:41:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> Message-ID: > On 2021-1-17 08:47, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: >>> Lest anyone forget/not know the nuance: Net Neutrality was a >>> standard that forced ISPs to allow all content to go through >>> equally, regardless of who owned who. That is, ISPs were forbidden to prioritize the packets they relay according to source. Netflix, for example, could not buy preferential access to make movies smoother. (I have no idea whether they do.) >>> Removing that was part of Trump's FCC's staff's priorities, with >>> dreams of corporate media shutting down small, independent, >>> liberal voices. They never imagined the most high-profile use >>> would be when it was turned against their side. > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 10:31 AM Anton Sherwood wrote: >> Has it been used against them? Without NN, do packets from AWS or >> Twitter or Facebook get higher priority in relays? On 2021-1-17 11:14, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > "Them/they" being the conservative legislators in this case, > not Amazon/Twitter/Facebook. Are ISPs detecting conservative content and making it travel slower? Are Twitter (etc) competitors that cater to conservatives being throttled by ISPs? -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 17 20:00:17 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 12:00:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <001e01d6ed06$21e17a20$65a46e60$@rainier66.com> References: <00c401d6ecf9$e2188d40$a649a7c0$@rainier66.com> <001e01d6ed06$21e17a20$65a46e60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <7996c13e-6efb-0650-cf5e-4db13ce5d7e7@pobox.com> On 2021-1-17 11:22, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > As it is, the big sites to filter, and consequently I would argue > even if they have legal immunity from liability, they carry a defacto > endorsement of any material they left on their site.? Now Face Book > and Twitter functionally endorse everything on there. Like the state endorses every criminal who remains at large. Moderation cannot be done well at such scale. As I may have mentioned before, CDA?230 was written to deprive Spike's presumption of legal force. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 20:17:53 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 12:17:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 11:45 AM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Are ISPs detecting conservative content and making it travel slower? > Are Twitter (etc) competitors that cater to conservatives being > throttled by ISPs? > At least one platform that catered to "conservative" content - specifically, content favoring the violent overthrow of the American government - has been refused service by ISPs on those grounds. So, "slower" as in "not at all". -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 20:25:55 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 14:25:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <001e01d6ed06$21e17a20$65a46e60$@rainier66.com> References: <00c401d6ecf9$e2188d40$a649a7c0$@rainier66.com> <001e01d6ed06$21e17a20$65a46e60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike, I think 'endorse' is too strong a word. It suggests that they approve of it, as opposed to letting any side speak for itself. Anyway, dealing with endorsement is easy: post disclaimers. bill w On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 1:24 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:* Sunday, January 17, 2021 11:07 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust > > > > >?Wouldn't a completely unmoderated site feature content that is legally > obscene, libelous or slanderous? bill w > > > > Sure would. The site would have to make it clear that it filters nothing, > even illegal material, then rely on 230 for protection from liability for > its content. > > > > As it is, the big sites to filter, and consequently I would argue even if > they have legal immunity from liability, they carry a defacto endorsement > of any material they left on their site. Now Face Book and Twitter > functionally endorse everything on 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 spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 17 20:56:17 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 12:56:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008601d6ed13$33baf3e0$9b30dba0$@rainier66.com> "If you don't view yourself as President of all the people, you don't deserve being President of any of the people." from bill W It doesn?t work that way BillW! I have always viewed myself as president of all people. But the stubborn rebels refuse to see themselves as my humble subjects. Why I aughta? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 17 20:58:44 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 12:58:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <00c401d6ecf9$e2188d40$a649a7c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009a01d6ed13$8b5abef0$a2103cd0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat ... Yes, but that's only for starters. Quote: >...Facebook will pay $52 million to thousands of current and former contract workers who viewed and removed graphic and disturbing posts on the social media platform for a living... The underbelly of the internet is really, really bad. BillK _______________________________________________ Could you even imagine doing that for a living? Oh mercy, no thanks, I'll just go ahead and starve under a bridge, get it over with. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 21:06:49 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 15:06:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: <008601d6ed13$33baf3e0$9b30dba0$@rainier66.com> References: <008601d6ed13$33baf3e0$9b30dba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: It's very clear, Spike: they are lying to you. They love you like a god. Maybe they don't want you to get a big head (too late!) bill w On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 2:58 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > > "If you don't view yourself as President of all the people, you don't > deserve being President of any of the people." from bill W > > > > > > > > It doesn?t work that way BillW! I have always viewed myself as president > of all people. But the stubborn rebels refuse to see themselves as my > humble subjects. Why I aughta? > > > > 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 Jan 17 21:23:48 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 13:23:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: References: <008601d6ed13$33baf3e0$9b30dba0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00a401d6ed17$0bfe6360$23fb2a20$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own >?It's very clear, Spike: they are lying to you. They love you like a god. Maybe they don't want you to get a big head (too late!) bill w Oh OK cool thanks. Hey wait a minute, whaddya mean ?like? and what?s with the lower case g? Blasphemer! A plague of locusts upon thee! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 17 21:33:08 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 16:33:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <20210116132226.Horde.YfUW-SKp2rzar_J-Rwf07gW@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 1:52 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Meanwhile the slow death of mailing lists has long bothered me. You all > probably know by now that Yahoogroups (which absorbed at least two older > hosts of mailing lists) has shut down. Why aren't list servers as > common as personal websites? > Because email is for old farts. :-) Google Groups is still an option, for topics unlikely to prompt Google pulling the plug. My web host offers WordPress (which I use), MediaWiki (which I can > imagine using), Drupal, Piwigo, Joomla, LimeSurvey, ownCloud, but not > mailman or anything of the sort. > Spinning up your own Mailman isn't hard. To break the power of Facebook and Twitter we need decentralized > versions of them, and for those to work we need the protocols to be > widely supported (which may be a chicken-egg problem). We need it to be > easy for millions of users to set up their own nodes. > There's Diaspora: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network) And Tim Berners-Lee's Inrupt/Solid may turn out to have freedom of speech benefits. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 17 23:00:02 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 15:00:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <5FCE5509-6708-4D0E-9FB4-242DA2C3EC9D@me.com> Message-ID: <2b1513cd-06f0-2ee1-7bab-165951af1b0b@pobox.com> > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 11:45 AM Anton Sherwood wrote: > Are ISPs detecting conservative content and making it travel slower? > Are Twitter (etc) competitors that cater to conservatives being > throttled by ISPs? On 2021-1-17 12:17, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > At least one platform that catered to "conservative" content - > specifically, content favoring the violent overthrow of the American > government - has been refused service by ISPs on those grounds.? So, > "slower" as in "not at all". That has nothing to do with Net Neutrality (with capital letters) as I understand the term. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From rahmans at me.com Mon Jan 18 01:47:11 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 02:47:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust Message-ID: <40826428-8139-4997-A440-9BEA0865029A@me.com> > Cc: > > > > > ?> On Behalf Of Omar Rahman via extropy-chat > > >> ? Mitt Romeny: ?Our duty as leaders is to show these people who have been deluded by conspiracy theories the truth.? > > > > I don?t recall that as a duty of senators or political leaders. But let?s go with it. How do we show the conspiracy people the truth? > > > > Consider this claim: the way the last US elections were done cause a large percentage of voters to think cheating was enabled. > > > > Note that the claim doesn?t include cheating took place. It claims that a large percentage of voters think that cheating was enabled. I was paraphrasing Romney?s speech on Jan. 6 during the ?debate? about counting the electoral votes. Many leaders have cynically repeated and amplified the false claims of voter fraud. I say cynically because after 60+ cases if your record is 1:64 then your theorem is really crap. No rational people actually believe it... Bayes theorem makes it very unlikely. In my opinion it is cynical also because many politicians sitting in heavily gerrymandered districts feel that they can win in perpetuity with this sort of tribalistic mythology. The real casualty in the end will be the Republican Party because rational people are fleeing it. Think about it, the ?party of Lincoln? held a rally which resulted in a riot where the confederate flag was paraded through the Capitol. The cognitive dissonance of seeing that flag and seeing police being beaten and killed is too much for moderate Republicans. So, Romney is right...to save his party Republicans will have to start telling the truth. And if they don?t believe simple facts...they need to be laughed at and humiliated...definitely not accommodated. By the way, at the time I?m writing this Parler is back up on some hosting somewhere..... oh the terrible ?censorship? they suffered! Now they can get back to the important business of saying who they would like to kill and which holes they would like to fuck them in before and/or after. After integration of the military I think it was Truman that said ?we have lost the south for a generation?... it turned out to be closer to three but the demographic trends are clear, more states are going to go blue. The big lie that ?Republicans couldn?t lose Georgia? was baked into their brains over the last 70 years of the Republicans? Southern Strategy.... they have been cheating/disenfranchising voters for so long that it seemed normal and acceptable for them. After Stacey Abrams lost to Kemp when he was the Sec. of State in his own election(where he used various corrupt practices to win election).... she organized such an excellent campaign of voter registration and mail in voting that it was impossible to steal it. Even when Trump phoned up to beg them to find 11780 votes. Anyways, sorry for the long post... the short answer is ?tell the truth, and mock the liars?. Regards, Omar Rahman From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jan 18 05:05:36 2021 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 21:05:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election Message-ID: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Earlier in this thread, Spike asked if any European countries used voting machines. While Italy and the UK do not, it turns out that Estonia goes even further and votes over the Internet and apparently quite successfully. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Estonia https://www.ria.ee/en/news/e-voting-too-secure.html They call their system E-voting and it works because all Estonians have national ID smartcards that are tied into a nation-wide public key infrastructure. It allows Estonians to remotely verify their identity for all manner of transactions including voting. Why can't we have something like that? What is the main argument against the USA issuing national ID? Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 18 14:30:14 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:30:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: What is the main argument against the USA issuing national ID? Stuart All I know is that Robert Heinlein said that when nations started issuing ID cards it was time to move on to another country. bill w On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 11:08 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Earlier in this thread, Spike asked if any European countries used > voting machines. While Italy and the UK do not, it turns out that > Estonia goes even further and votes over the Internet and apparently > quite successfully. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Estonia > https://www.ria.ee/en/news/e-voting-too-secure.html > > > They call their system E-voting and it works because all Estonians > have national ID smartcards that are tied into a nation-wide public > key infrastructure. It allows Estonians to remotely verify their > identity for all manner of transactions including voting. > > Why can't we have something like that? What is the main argument > against the USA issuing national ID? > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 18 14:35:09 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 06:35:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election >...Earlier in this thread, Spike asked if any European countries used voting machines. While Italy and the UK do not, it turns out that Estonia goes even further and votes over the Internet and apparently quite successfully. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Estonia https://www.ria.ee/en/news/e-voting-too-secure.html >...They call their system E-voting and it works because all Estonians have national ID smartcards that are tied into a nation-wide public key infrastructure. It allows Estonians to remotely verify their identity for all manner of transactions including voting. >...Why can't we have something like that? What is the main argument against the USA issuing national ID? Stuart LaForge _______________________________________________ Hi Stuart, The main argument against the USA issuing national ID is that Americans have the right to privacy encoded in the constitution, article 4. The Estonians do not. Estonians must do whatever their government orders. It is a former Soviet bloc country. In the US, we don't even enforce citizenship rules: non-citizens can and do live in the USA. They don't have Social Security numbers, which is the closest to a national ID we have here, and since even that isn't enforced, it isn't clear that a more inclusive form of ID can be enforced either. An alternative would be face recognition technology and other biometric identification. Since humans already do that, I don't see why it should be illegal to automate it. Regarding an e-voting system: that would go in the wrong direction. What I urge is greater transparency in our system. Currently trust in our elections is eroding because of decreasing transparency. Our court system works as well as it does by involving citizens on juries. Most of us here have likely been on a jury. These serve as civics lessons for the public: we get to see how the criminal justice system really works. I propose opening up our election system to public scrutiny far more intimately than our justice system. Let the public see everything. Our justice system sacrifices speed for public trust, which is why trials take so long but we trust the outcome. Our election system sacrifices public trust for speed, which is why election results are fast but we distrust the outcome. spike spike From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 18 14:53:27 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 09:53:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:38 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > The main argument against the USA issuing national ID is that Americans > have > the right to privacy encoded in the constitution, article 4. How would an ID violate privacy? > An alternative would be face recognition technology and other biometric > identification. Since humans already do that, I don't see why it should be > illegal to automate it. > That would have serious privacy implications. > Our justice system sacrifices speed for public trust, which is why trials > take so long but we trust the outcome. It's often too slow and many of us don't trust the outcomes. > Our election system sacrifices > public trust for speed, which is why election results are fast but we > distrust the outcome. > It's OK to distrust the outcome if there's evidence of a problem. Every challenge to the 2020 election was thrown out of court because of the lack of evidence. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 18 15:08:44 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 07:08:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat Sent: Monday, January 18, 2021 6:53 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: Dave Sill Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:38 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: The main argument against the USA issuing national ID is that Americans have the right to privacy encoded in the constitution, article 4. How would an ID violate privacy? Americans have the right to refuse any form of personal identification. Currently it isn?t used even for in-person voting in California. Many activities do require identification, such as driving, but voting does not. Article 4 of the constitution forbids the government from requiring identification just to exist. An alternative would be face recognition technology and other biometric identification. ? >?That would have serious privacy implications. How well I understand that. However, we have always had face recognition. Now we have the technology to automate that process. It looks to me like there is no logical way to make use of face rec tech illegal. Our justice system sacrifices speed for public trust, which is why trials take so long but we trust the outcome. >?It's often too slow and many of us don't trust the outcomes. Ja to both, but the trust would be far less if it was fast and they would take the convicted out behind the courthouse to a firing squad that day. Our election system sacrifices public trust for speed, which is why election results are fast but we distrust the outcome. >?It's OK to distrust the outcome? Ja, distrust is growing steadily. >? if there's evidence of a problem? The growing distrust is evidence of a problem. The system lacks transparency. >?Every challenge to the 2020 election was thrown out of court because of the lack of evidence. -Dave What we need is evidence that would lead to more public trust. I haven?t seen that evidence, but I have seen plenty of evidence of reduced public trust. The system lacks transparency, which leads to public distrust. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 18 15:40:46 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 10:40:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 10:10 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Americans have the right to refuse any form of personal identification. > Currently it isn?t used even for in-person voting in California. Many > activities do require identification, such as driving, but voting does not. > Having an ID and being required to produce one are not the same. > Article 4 of the constitution forbids the government from requiring > identification just to exist. > Can you be more specific? I don't see it. > How well I understand that. However, we have always had face > recognition. Now we have the technology to automate that process. It > looks to me like there is no logical way to make use of face rec tech > illegal. > It's easy to pass laws making it illegal. >?It's OK to distrust the outcome? > > > > Ja, distrust is growing steadily. > But there's no evidence of voting problems outside of wacky conspiracy theories. >? if there's evidence of a problem? > > > > The growing distrust is evidence of a problem. The system lacks > transparency. > Yes, surely transparency would solve the problems we've seen. :-) >?Every challenge to the 2020 election was thrown out of court because of > the lack of evidence. > > > > What we need is evidence that would lead to more public trust. I haven?t > seen that evidence, but I have seen plenty of evidence of reduced public > trust. The system lacks transparency, which leads to public distrust. > More transparency would convince reasonable people but it would have no effect on unreasonable people. I see no indications of trust issues from reasonable people. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 18 15:59:35 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 07:59:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006801d6edb2$eb2c7810$c1856830$@rainier66.com> From: Dave Sill >>? The system lacks transparency, which leads to public distrust. >?More transparency would convince reasonable people? Good, that?s all we need. >?but it would have no effect on unreasonable people? No need to bother with them. We are looking to increase the confidence in reasonable people. >? I see no indications of trust issues from reasonable people. -Dave Good then you should be all for increased transparency in order to maintain trust from reasonable people. So am I. This process needs a lot more transparency. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Mon Jan 18 16:42:25 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 16:42:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2680ae17-3f3b-51c5-04a2-85803116a9b9@zaiboc.net> On 18/01/2021 15:59, bill w wrote: > They love you like a god Now there's an interesting expression, with more than one interpretation (a long time ago, I came to the conclusion that if a god really did exist, I'd like a few words with it. 'Love' wasn't what I had in mind! I'm still of the same opinion, and I don't think I'm the only one) Don't worry, Spike, I don't 'love you like a god'. On the contrary, I have a very high opinion of you. -- Ben Zaiboc From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jan 18 16:49:54 2021 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:49:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20210118084954.Horde.kuMIyh5fx834xiUyiOIcCGc@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> If we only need sufficient transparency in our elections to allow reasonable people to be satisfied as to its legitimacy, then what is wrong with an open-source cryptographic public key system tied to national ID or biometric eigenfaces for that matter? For example, you could require all online voting systems to have a camera and use facial recognition and private key to identify the voter, and then hash their face for the public ledger block-chain which records their vote so that any guy with a web-enabled device can audit the vote counts. Make it open source so that the whole world has access to the code. Invite the whole world to beta-test the software and try to break it. Whatever comes out the other end of that crucible might be worthy to determine the leader(s) of the free world in a transparent but modern voting system. Paper ballots can become worn out, lost, or stolen over repeated recounts while a blockchain cannot. Stuart LaForge Quoting Spike and Dave: > > > > > > From: Dave Sill > > > >>> ? The system lacks transparency, which leads to public distrust. > > > >> ?More transparency would convince reasonable people? > > > > Good, that?s all we need. > > > >> ?but it would have no effect on unreasonable people? > > > > No need to bother with them. We are looking to increase the > confidence in reasonable people. > > > >> ? I see no indications of trust issues from reasonable people. > > > > -Dave > > > > Good then you should be all for increased transparency in order to > maintain trust from reasonable people. So am I. This process needs > a lot more transparency. > > > > spike From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 18 17:31:26 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 09:31:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: <2680ae17-3f3b-51c5-04a2-85803116a9b9@zaiboc.net> References: <2680ae17-3f3b-51c5-04a2-85803116a9b9@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <00e101d6edbf$c025fda0$4071f8e0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat >...Don't worry, Spike, I don't 'love you like a god'. On the contrary, I have a very high opinion of you. -- Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ {8^D Ben, how can you really be absolutely sure... that I exist? I might be just a kind of imaginary construct. There are plenty of spike unbelievers and disbelievers. Scoundrels! Why I augha... prepare eternal punishment for them. spike From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 18 17:43:46 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 09:43:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: <00e101d6edbf$c025fda0$4071f8e0$@rainier66.com> References: <2680ae17-3f3b-51c5-04a2-85803116a9b9@zaiboc.net> <00e101d6edbf$c025fda0$4071f8e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:33 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Ben, how can you really be absolutely sure... that I exist? I might be > just > a kind of imaginary construct. > > There are plenty of spike unbelievers and disbelievers. Scoundrels! Why I > augha... prepare eternal punishment for them. > A god who punishes those who believe in said god? Pascal's Wager's consequences in action. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 18 18:22:41 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 10:22:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 7:42 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 10:10 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> Americans have the right to refuse any form of personal identification. >> Currently it isn?t used even for in-person voting in California. Many >> activities do require identification, such as driving, but voting does not. >> > > Having an ID and being required to produce one are not the same. > The thinking is, if people are required to have an ID at all times, it is a reasonable imposition to require that they produce it at any time. (This can include having an RFID chip on said ID, and carrying said ID to not block said RFID - e.g., don't carry it in a Faraday cage.) > Article 4 of the constitution forbids the government from requiring >> identification just to exist. >> > > Can you be more specific? I don't see it. > I think he meant Amendment 4: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Wherein "provide ID or you're arrested" constitutes an "unreasonable search" of the person for ID. See above for how laws requiring producing ID at any time just because you're assumed to have it, stems from being required to have ID. The reality is, even if everyone's supposed to have an ID, a lot of people will not: * The poor who are constantly too busy to get an ID. * Those who simply forget (and make other bad life decisions that harm no one but themselves). * Accident and theft victims (which can be anyone). * Assuming the ID must be valid as registered by some electronic system, said system can be hacked - or, if the cop wants an excuse to arrest someone who has not otherwise committed a crime (for instance, a black person being in a neighborhood that a racist cop wants to keep white), the cop can sabotage an ID reader and then (technically correctly) claim the reader said the ID was fraudulent. * Immigrants who find their application for IDs taking much longer than the law mandates. They're legally required and presumed to have IDs, but they haven't actually been issued IDs due to no fault of their own and there is nothing they can do about it. This would create a new class of criminals, who have done no other offense to society. That itself is the problem being objected to. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 18 18:54:52 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 13:54:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <006801d6edb2$eb2c7810$c1856830$@rainier66.com> References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> <006801d6edb2$eb2c7810$c1856830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 11:02 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Good then you should be all for increased transparency in order to > maintain trust from reasonable people. So am I. This process needs a lot > more transparency. > I think more transparency would be good. I'd have to see a cost/benefit analysis of any proposed solutions to decide whether or not I support them. On principle, I'd be fine with scrapping electronic voting systems that aren't open source--or least not buying more of them. I'd be fine with optical vote scanning systems. I would not be OK with entirely human tallied voting. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 18 19:01:56 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 14:01:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 1:24 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 7:42 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Having an ID and being required to produce one are not the same. >> > > The thinking is, if people are required to have an ID at all times, it is > a reasonable imposition to require that they produce it at any time. (This > can include having an RFID chip on said ID, and carrying said ID to not > block said RFID - e.g., don't carry it in a Faraday cage.) > Yeah, that I understand and agree with. I don't see a problem with a national ID that you aren't required to carry or produce upon demand. If it would take amendment to do that right, so be it. I also don't see a problem with a national voter ID that you'd have to present at the ballot. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 18 19:10:50 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 11:10:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> <006801d6edb2$eb2c7810$c1856830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <013501d6edcd$a32fb660$e98f2320$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 11:02 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: Good then you should be all for increased transparency in order to maintain trust from reasonable people. So am I. This process needs a lot more transparency. >?I would not be OK with entirely human tallied voting. -Dave Dave do elaborate please. My reasoning on this is that it would involve a lot of ordinary citizens with lots of witnesses, like our court system, which would educate the citizenry. Transparency is good, even if it takes longer. We can wait. In our society today, we disallow private one to one interaction between adults and children, for understandable and justifiable reasons: it has the appearance of impropriety. There is one exception: priests hearing confessions. They argue that it is a legitimate exception, he?s a priest after all, he took oaths, he?s a man of Me (which isn?t true, he isn?t My guy) and what can go wrong? Well, as we know, things can go wrong with that. For starters, it has the appearance of impropriety, even in the overwhelming majority of cases where no impropriety takes place: we can?t verify it didn?t. So? I am suggesting we eliminate or at least reduce as much as practical the appearance of impropriety in voting, something I have advocated for over 20 years (that 2000 election was a real wake-up call.) Start by throwing out those voting machines. We don?t need them. Italy and UK somehow get by without them. Involve lots of volunteer citizen labor in counting the votes by hand. Then we have plenty of firsthand witnesses, ordinary citizens, partisans, god itself (I will cheerfully volunteer to help with that) and everybody. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 18 19:17:52 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 11:17:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <013c01d6edce$9e4d24b0$dae76e10$@rainier66.com> >?> On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat >?Yeah, that I understand and agree with. I don't see a problem with a national ID that you aren't required to carry or produce upon demand. .. That?s what software face recognition does, and I agree with you Dave. I don?t see that as unreasonable search and seizure to use that technology and even to track people?s whereabouts with it. I know I just set off a firestorm with that comment, but I don?t see the 4th amendment as forbidding that. >? I also don't see a problem with a national voter ID that you'd have to present at the ballot. -Dave I agree with that too Dave, and have advocated some kind of personal ID verification at the polls since always. The notion is anathema in California. We have a little routine: I always hold my photo ID when I pick up my ballot, the volunteers say ?We are not allowed to ask for that? I answer ?I know, you didn?t, I am volunteering it.? They know me, tolerate me anyway. {8^D These are the kinds of things that reduce the appearance of impropriety. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Mon Jan 18 20:42:54 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 12:42:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: References: <2680ae17-3f3b-51c5-04a2-85803116a9b9@zaiboc.net> <00e101d6edbf$c025fda0$4071f8e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <48b86d26-84cf-244d-96a8-bc3c9d3abbd8@pobox.com> On 2021-1-18 09:43, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > A god who punishes those who believe in said god? > Pascal's Wager's consequences in action. I am reminded somehow of a story, likely one of Larry Niven's "Draco Tavern" stories. A human asks a member of an Elder Race what they believe about the afterlife, and the alien says that once there was a race that did deep study of the subject and then committed mass suicide; because of that, "we discourage research into that field." One human says, "That must mean there is a heaven and it's easy to get into." Another replies, "Or there's a hell and it's worse the longer you wait." -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 18 21:44:51 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 13:44:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 11:03 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 1:24 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 7:42 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Having an ID and being required to produce one are not the same. >>> >> >> The thinking is, if people are required to have an ID at all times, it is >> a reasonable imposition to require that they produce it at any time. (This >> can include having an RFID chip on said ID, and carrying said ID to not >> block said RFID - e.g., don't carry it in a Faraday cage.) >> > > Yeah, that I understand and agree with. I don't see a problem with a > national ID that you aren't required to carry or produce upon demand. If it > would take amendment to do that right, so be it. > So, if there is a national ID that people are expected to have, how do you keep states & cities from passing laws requiring carrying & producing on demand? "Pass a Constitutional amendment" doesn't cut it. This is the kind of thing where an unconstitutional law will get enforced widely without, in many cases, recourse to courts; by the time the case gets to court (if it does - if it's not just an excuse to hold someone overnight and confiscate whatever's on the person), damage has already been done. If the law gets struck down, something just like it gets passed, and the cycle continues. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Mon Jan 18 22:00:35 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 14:00:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-18 11:01, Dave Sill via extropy-chat wrote: > I also don't see a problem with a national voter ID > that you'd have to present at the ballot. I have a nine-digit number that I like to call my Database Insecurity Number. Ideally no two of your roles (voter, taxpayer, student, traveler, licensee, patient, writer, resident ...) should be linked, and such linkage should not be necessary to establish that, in each role, you are genuine and unique. Probably some Cypherpunk has written more on this than I can imagine. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From rahmans at me.com Mon Jan 18 23:18:16 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:18:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7DD781DC-A528-456B-93D9-9A1EC6781EB1@me.com> > Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 06:35:09 -0800 > From: > > > ... > > The main argument against the USA issuing national ID is that Americans have > the right to privacy encoded in the constitution, article 4. The Estonians > do not. Estonians must do whatever their government orders. It is a former > Soviet bloc country. Spike, are you joking? First, I went and read Article 4 of the constitution, nothing about privacy?.maybe you meant another Article? Secondly, Estonians have a strong democracy, and as an EU member state citizens have their personal information protected by the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations). The GDPR enables you to request that a company reveal what information they have collected on you, and you can order them to delete it. And they actually have to! The EU has ?the right to be forgotten? as well. Google LOST a test case on this issue and they cannot show data that people have requested to be deleted in the EU. The EU also has the eIDAS regulations which setup frameworks for Electronic IDs and digital signatures as well. The EU also has VIES VAT number online validation so that you can check if the company you are doing business with is an actual registered company. As a personal example (from nearby Poland): I filled in an application, then legally signed, and received Covid relief/stimulus funds completely online. From a philosophical perspective reliable ID makes a lot os sense if you think of things in terms of "The Prisoners? Dilemma?. If you meet a constant stream of new/anonymous strangers a successful strategy is to continually ?betray?. That?s exactly what we see in the anonymous forums; people spew their lies/hate/threats at max volume and as often as they can because there are no repercussions and some successes. As soon as you have good ID laws, people develop reputations, and betrayal is no longer a profitable strategy in ?Prisoners? Dilemma?. Regards, Omar Rahman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 19 00:17:16 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 18:17:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] antiscientific conservatives Message-ID: bill w https://www.salon.com/2021/01/18/conservatives-not-liberals-are-more-inclined-to-value-feelings-over-facts-psychology-study-finds/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbard at wisc.edu Tue Jan 19 14:47:15 2021 From: hibbard at wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 08:47:15 -0600 (CST) Subject: [ExI] Oh, to be a fly on the wall Message-ID: https://www.mediaite.com/biden/just-in-mitch-mcconnell-going-to-church-with-joe-biden-ahead-of-inauguration-at-bidens-invitation/ Not really extropian, but kinda interesting. From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 19 15:11:45 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 10:11:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <013501d6edcd$a32fb660$e98f2320$@rainier66.com> References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> <006801d6edb2$eb2c7810$c1856830$@rainier66.com> <013501d6edcd$a32fb660$e98f2320$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 2:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Dave wrote: > > >?I would not be OK with entirely human tallied voting. > > > > Dave do elaborate please. > We've already been over this. Optically-scanned paper ballots provide accurate results immediately that are verified as needed by manual tallying. My reasoning on this is that it would involve a lot of ordinary citizens > with lots of witnesses, like our court system, which would educate the > citizenry. Transparency is good, even if it takes longer. We can wait. > Yes, we can wait. We shouldn't have to. Polls are already manned by "both" parties to ensure no monkey business. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 19 15:15:15 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 10:15:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 4:47 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > So, if there is a national ID that people are expected to have, how do you > keep states & cities from passing laws requiring carrying & producing on > demand? > > "Pass a Constitutional amendment" doesn't cut it. This is the kind of > thing where an unconstitutional law will get enforced widely without, in > many cases, recourse to courts; by the time the case gets to court (if it > does - if it's not just an excuse to hold someone overnight and confiscate > whatever's on the person), damage has already been done. If the law gets > struck down, something just like it gets passed, and the cycle continues. > If we can't count on the Constitution to protect us, all hope is lost. I think there's plenty of evidence that Constitutional protections do work, albeit not always perfectly. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 19 15:18:02 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 10:18:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <20210118084954.Horde.kuMIyh5fx834xiUyiOIcCGc@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210118084954.Horde.kuMIyh5fx834xiUyiOIcCGc@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 11:51 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > If we only need sufficient transparency in our elections to allow > reasonable people to be satisfied as to its legitimacy, then what is > wrong with an open-source cryptographic public key system tied to > national ID or biometric eigenfaces for that matter? > Transparency is necessary but not sufficient. Voting needs to be secret. A block chain record would be public. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 19 16:37:05 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 08:37:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 7:23 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 4:47 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> So, if there is a national ID that people are expected to have, how do >> you keep states & cities from passing laws requiring carrying & producing >> on demand? >> >> "Pass a Constitutional amendment" doesn't cut it. This is the kind of >> thing where an unconstitutional law will get enforced widely without, in >> many cases, recourse to courts; by the time the case gets to court (if it >> does - if it's not just an excuse to hold someone overnight and confiscate >> whatever's on the person), damage has already been done. If the law gets >> struck down, something just like it gets passed, and the cycle continues. >> > > If we can't count on the Constitution to protect us, all hope is lost. > We can't count on the Constitution to protect us in all things, and all hope is not lost. For instance in this case, one solution is to simply not set up an expectation that people should always have their ID available - for instance, by not requiring that everyone have an ID. (Which is distinct from there being a national ID that anyone may have with little to no expense - for instance, if there was a form of passport that was free to apply for and issue, at least the first time for any given person and any renewals.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Tue Jan 19 19:05:22 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 19:05:22 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <976ace64-0c17-0ec0-2f3a-19af2aac4443@zaiboc.net> On 19/01/2021 15:12, Spike wrote: > Ben, how can you really be absolutely sure... that I exist? I might be just > a kind of imaginary construct. Depends on what you mean by "I" and "exist". I can't be sure that the gangly and wise, good-natured ancient-wool-pants-wearing person with an off-the-scale sensa huma depicted in your posts is a human being living in that strange and baffling land over the water, but your posts didn't just appear from nowhere, so something created them. If Spike is an imaginary construct, whatever created it possesses all the necessary qualities and knowledge to be Spike, so it might as well be Spike (it could be far more than Spike, but it must by necessity at least contain all the Spikeness (as opposed to spikiness) required to pose as Spike). So even if you don't 'exist', you do exist in some way. But William of Ockham is my guide here, so I will assume you exist until it's proven otherwise. (Interestingly, William doesn't seem to have ever directly stated what we know as Occam's Razor. It crops up many times throughout history, though, from Aristotle through Newton up to modern medicine (the 'Zebra': "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras", Theodore Woodward, sometime in the 1940s) -- Ben Zaiboc From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 19 20:01:44 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 12:01:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own In-Reply-To: <976ace64-0c17-0ec0-2f3a-19af2aac4443@zaiboc.net> References: <976ace64-0c17-0ec0-2f3a-19af2aac4443@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <00b101d6ee9d$e9a8d380$bcfa7a80$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Dr Mardy quote of the week: his own On 19/01/2021 15:12, Spike wrote: > Ben, how can you really be absolutely sure... that I exist? I might > be just a kind of imaginary construct. >... whatever created it possesses all the necessary qualities and knowledge to be Spike, so it might as well be Spike ... -- Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ Oh OK Ben thanks for that. It increases my confidence I exist. This explanation is more satisfying that that feller who commented "I think, therefore I am." Where I was originally going with it however is that you might be the only one. It would kind of a software version of The Truman Show, where you are Truman and we are avatars. If you are a Truman Show fan, you may recall that scene at the beach where a guy popped out of the trash can and started yelling "TRUMAN! It's all faaake! It's a TV show!" before several burley guys grabbed him and hauled him away. That would hafta be unsettling. I would be the software equivalent of the trash can guy. spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 04:40:24 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 23:40:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <002301d6d4f0$265c6fc0$73154f40$@rainier66.com> <006f01d6d620$d9687f10$8c397d30$@rainier66.com> <009901d6d63a$d6c8cf20$845a6d60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 2:49 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Epidemiology is part of medical science, the methods to contain epidemics > are not invented by politicians. > >> - ### Epidemiologists are against lockdowns but politicians are willing to pay a lot to some epidemiologists to provide justifications for increasing their political power, and there are always clowns willing to lie. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 05:04:26 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:04:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Political Relativism (was very informative) In-Reply-To: References: <20201229144724.Horde.f8qMVI4WLC8lYonUNTpcWAg@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 8:31 PM Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I did not mean here to insist that libertarianism *requires* open > borders; only to question the assertion that libertarianism is not > *compatible* with open borders. > ### No stable social order is compatible with broadly-defined "open borders", not in the long term. As soon as there are entities capable of destroying said order and in sufficient proximity, the entities must be kept out or else the social order is going to be destroyed. Murderous dynamitards have to be kept out, or in prison, or killed. Huddled masses not interested in maintaining the said social order, be it libertarian or communist or whatever, have to be denied entry. Chitinous aliens that breed like the locusts have to be vaporized by the planetary defence platforms before their spaceships could disgorge them in the atmosphere, or else all is lost. It is a general rule that a coherent ingroup must be defined for any stable social arrangement to exist. Failure to have an ingroup generally leads to social failure, except in island conditions where no other entities exist - and even there failure will result if defectors spontaneously arise on the island and disrupt the game-theoretic equilibrium. Social norms, ostracism, definitions of crime and deviancy, national borders, the neighborhood watch and many other social phenomena are just surface manifestations of this deeper (but still not very deep) idea. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 05:07:46 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:07:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Political Relativism (was very informative) In-Reply-To: References: <20201229164907.Horde.qPrKNKfJViQMghSsjw_Uhya@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <9fe051d1-4dc4-e67a-cfa6-8a51617165e9@pobox.com> <46747af9-c31b-56a4-e036-ec3c713008ea@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 1:34 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > At present I think global economics is corrupt. Under the table payoffs > are routine business just about everywhere. Graft. I learned all about > that in Costa Rica - to get something imported, built,and many other > things, you have to pay and pay and pay - everyone gets a little bit of > your money, and it can take months to, for example, import your own vehicle > after which you will have paid more in graft than you did for the car. > bill w > ### Who is corrupt here? The global car company or the local thieving bureaucrats? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 05:23:47 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:23:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Political Relativism (was very informative) In-Reply-To: <20201230110152.Horde.CToYZe2O4e-NWN0rRZBS5j1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20201230110152.Horde.CToYZe2O4e-NWN0rRZBS5j1@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 2:03 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > it could just be > that authoritarian people are attracted to political extremes as a > route to achieving power over others. ### Psychopaths are attracted to power as flies are attracted to shit and they will join whatever club they think that gives them a shot at power. The Holy Mother Catholic Church was full of psychopaths in the time of Cesare Borgia, now it's mostly old codgers who like altar boys while the psychopaths moved on to the various departments of the state and political activist groups. I am sure the Chinese imperial bureaucracy was full of psychopaths back in the day, while the communist party was once full of idealistic dreamers, until enough dumb peasants listened to their stories to create a chance for a power grab and attracted the psychopaths who turned it into the biggest meatgrinder in history. Now the CCP is properly the ASS - Association of Sino-Assholes, the umbrella organization of all the most ambitious, most intelligent and most depraved psychopaths that the Chinese nation has to offer. The wheel of history grinds on as psychopaths move around in the society and converge on the next big thing and corrupt it, because the one stable thing in history is that psychopaths corrupt everything they touch. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 05:39:25 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:39:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Political Relativism (was very informative) In-Reply-To: References: <20201229164907.Horde.qPrKNKfJViQMghSsjw_Uhya@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <9fe051d1-4dc4-e67a-cfa6-8a51617165e9@pobox.com> <46747af9-c31b-56a4-e036-ec3c713008ea@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 8:07 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Anton, if I am reading this right, you are a right wing authoritarian. > > This is a very different test than the one I took many (?) years ago. My > scores: -2.63 -7.74 modestly liberal, very libertarian > > ### My scores are 6.25 and -1.49. Extreme right-wing moderate? Slightly liberal extremist libertarian? Weird. But, my position on the graphs overlaps with Milton Friedman's, so I like the result a lot. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 05:48:20 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:48:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 9:47 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Race as commonly used is, again, a social construct. ### Srsly? The inherited differences between the average Pygmy and the average Han being a social construct? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 05:51:48 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:51:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: <05A1CD25-97B9-434C-BB60-C4F56BACAF8D@gmail.com> References: <000701d6dd8b$4cd35800$e67a0800$@rainier66.com> <05A1CD25-97B9-434C-BB60-C4F56BACAF8D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 9:56 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > To wit, crossing a national border per se doesn?t generate any rights > issues for anyone. ### Nobody cares about national borders per se, we only care when their crossing creates issues. We don't mind if a sparrow flies over the border, we mind if the Hun invades. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 05:56:03 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:56:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: References: <000a01d6dd8f$c47f0990$4d7d1cb0$@rainier66.com> <002d01d6dd93$1c800010$55800030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 11:09 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Dec 28, 2020, 10:33 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Cool an internet native who will know the answer. >> >> >> >> Will, how many races are there? >> > > Internet natives recognize only one: human > ### Do you mean there are no useful distinctions to be made between the Pygmies and the Han? Because, in general there are as many or as few races as it is useful to have. There is no peremptorily correct way of classifying things, be it beetles or humans, only less and more useful ones. An internet native should know this. I do. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:05:02 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:05:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Social 85%, economic 100% On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 2:35 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 12:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Well Dave, I am just trying to find a group or groups I would find >> amenable to my beliefs. "What are you politically?" cannot be followed by >> pages and pages on what I believe on scores of issues. >> > > Another option would be to use a test score. E.g., take this quick 20 > question quiz: http://polquiz.com/ > > I got: social 90%, economic 100%. > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:20:49 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:20:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 5:12 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via > extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard > > On 03/01/2021 17:12, Spike wrote: > >>... We have collectively missed Orwell's lesson. Anyone here who has not > read Nineteen Eighty Four, please stop what you are doing and read it. > Understand what he is saying there. It is a message for our times. > > >...Yes, I second that. To my shame, I only read it relatively recently, > and > immediately realised I should have done so long ago. It should be part of > everyone's education (together with in-depth explanations and discussions > of > its meaning and relevance to the real world, on several levels), imo. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > > > Ben thanks for that comment. It warms the cockles of me heart. > > This message has special meaning for me, as I have friends who lived in > Ukraine in the final days of communism. They explain clearly why Americans > seldom understand: we have always lived in a place were everything was > money-limited rather than availability limited. In America, if you have > the > money, you can buy whatever and as much of whatever you want. In Ukraine > during communism, people had money, but there wasn't the availability of > western goods, which is what people really wanted. The people in the party > somehow managed to get access to these items, even without a large amount > of > money. They just knew when and where the goods would be and could make > arrangements to own those. > > Hearing a description of that system from a firsthand point of view was an > eye-opener. > > ### Let me describe some of my own childhood memories - when I was about 10 years old, meat was scarce in Poland. It would be delivered to stores in the morning. First the local communist party would show up at the back door. Then the police would show up, also at the back door. Then doctors might come by and quickly pick up some items from under the counter. The butcher's family would eat whatever he carried out in his bag. Finally the general population would get whatever was left over. Since my father was a doctor and very popular with his patients, including the butcher, I did get to eat meat often. And I still do! This week so far I had beef, bison and incredibly delicious BBQ ribs. There is some foie gras and an ostrich in the freezer. Life is good. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:22:25 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:22:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Scientists Just Created a Catalyst That Turns CO2 Into Jet Fuel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 12:06 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > An amazing development for the protection of the environment! : ) > > "For years now, chemists have been trying to apply this idea to one of the > most environmentally damaging sectors of our economy: the aviation > industry. Not only do planes emit huge amounts of CO2, they also pump other > greenhouse gases like nitrogen oxide directly into the upper atmosphere, > where their warming effect is greatly increased. > > The fossil fuels they burn to create all these emissions are hydrocarbons, > which means they are made up of a combination of carbon and hydrogen. > That?s led some to suggest it might be possible to create synthetic > versions of these fuels by capturing the CO2 planes produce and combining > it with hydrogen extracted with water. > ### This is incredibly stupid. Even worse than biodiesel. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:30:25 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:30:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: <20210109070355.Horde.3gPeQAXvYfRmeUuENDOfRwP@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20210109070355.Horde.3gPeQAXvYfRmeUuENDOfRwP@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 10:05 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Here is some interesting data that might cheer up some of those on this > list: > > > https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/main-factors-driving-population-growth/pf_15-04-02_ch1graphics_lifeexpectancyreligion310px/ > > Apparently atheists have a higher life expectancy than any religion > except for Jews. Ashkenazi Jews have been noted by medical science for > their genetic predisposition to long life but the results for atheists > are surprising. After all atheists have no qualms about eating pork or > imbibing alcohol or doing drugs. I am not sure what genetic effects > might be present there. Might it boil down to relative income? > > ### IQ, the dark matter of all matters sociological, invisible except to those who got those nifty eyeglasses from "They Live". Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:33:31 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:33:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If one needs to ask, resistance is futile. On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 8:36 PM Angel Z. Lopez wrote: > resist what? > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 8:31 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Resist. >> >> -- >> Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD >> Schuyler Biotech PLLC >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:36:34 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:36:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] One word In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 3:04 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 9:33 AM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> Resistance is futile! We are the Borg! >> >> People are leaving Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and were moving to >> Parler. So Google and Apple removed the Parler APP and then Amazon >> kicked Parler off AWS, shutting down the Parler servers. >> Whatsapp users are moving to Signal and Gmail users to Protonmail. So >> far Signal and Protonmail have not been absorbed by the Borg. We can >> hope they survive the purge. >> But this is not a 'left' purge of the 'right'. The 'left' might think >> it is, but the super-rich that control the press and social media are >> pulling the strings and using COVID as well to prevent people from >> gathering or organizing. They admire the Chinese social control >> systems and heed the motto 'Never let a crisis go to waste'. >> It will be interesting to find ourselves living through a revolution. >> >> >> > +Infinity. Glad to see someone else here sees exactly what is happening > right now. I realize the irony that I am sending this from a gmail account > but I am in the process of deplatforming to Proton Mail. > ### How difficult is it? What about long term stability? Google might have turned evil but they are smart. Gmail works. Am I at risk of turning even more evil than I am now if I use an evil email service? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:38:24 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:38:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: <005901d6e5f1$57252720$056f7560$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 2:33 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Yes. We will finally get to see what happens when, in the words of V, > "People shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be > afraid of their people". > > Can't say I'm optimistic, tbh. > ### 12 ft non-scalable wall to be built around the rulers, pronto. Because, "Walls don't work! (except if we need them)" Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:42:23 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:42:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 10:04 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > There's no one more in favor of free speech than liberals. In fact, I > would say that historically, free speech dominated liberal thinking. The > word does mean 'free' after all. Liberate speech. Thomas Paine. > ### Really? Just think about all the true things you are afraid of saying among liberals. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 06:52:27 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:52:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210111214735.Horde.Kwbu1LnRCYLpFhZHK2xfmKz@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 2:25 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > The voting machines aren't the problem. The current rage-addicted divisive > political environment is the problem. > > ### It's a bit like saying "Massive nuclear arsenals are not a problem, it's just the current divisive cold-war mindset that is the problem". Dunno, but we dodged some massive nuclear bullets in the past 60 years. The rest of the Cold War was a breeze. Some technologies are just naughty. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 07:11:49 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 02:11:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] west virginia leads... was: RE: Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <008a01d6ead1$7eb1bc10$7c153430$@rainier66.com> <009f01d6ead6$ca2dfa00$5e89ee00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 4:33 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > 2) If COVID mutates rapidly (as seems to be happening) then there may > need to be an annual vaccination, like the flu jab every winter. > > ### This is highly unlikely, at least not for the reason you mention. The flu has a genetic structure that encourages gene swapping between different strains, thus often creating new and substantially different strains of the virus. Coronaviruses do not have that gene swapping mechanism and the Wuhan virus is only likely to slowly accumulate mutations, mostly point mutations, like other coronaviruses. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 07:22:46 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 02:22:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] president's cabinet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 6:20 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It will now contain a science advisor who is a geneticist and > mathematician, and director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. The > post had been vacant for 18 months. This is now a cabinet level position. > ### Biden's track record on science is awful. Bama and Biden (sounds like a comic duo, doesn't it?) had Steven Chu in the cabinet, a complete wing-nut who thought his job as Secretary of Energy was to make sure gas prices reach 9 $ per gallon. Or that barking dimwit Holdren... Or the anti-nuclear activist they put in charge of the NRC. But since Bama days they cranked up crazy to eleven. Three words - New Green Deal. > > I just hope all of this is not going to be like putting Humpty Dumpty > together again. The EPA was nearly broken. > > ### The EPA should be eliminated, its buildings burned down and the ruins sprinkled with uranium salt, just to make sure it doesn't regrow. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 07:28:11 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 02:28:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hot fire fail In-Reply-To: <006e01d6ec7a$056bbb80$10433280$@rainier66.com> References: <006e01d6ec7a$056bbb80$10433280$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 9:41 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Dang, the NASA RS-25 hot fire test was a fail: > > > > https://spacenews.com/green-run-hotfire-test-ends-early/ > > > > Capitalist Musk is eating the government?s lunch. > > > ### Aren't they using 40 year old engine technology salvaged from the Space Shuttle program? Aren't they building a non-reusable system using 60 year old technologies that was obsolete even before the first billion dollars was spent? Haven't they spent 35 billion dollars so far, just to get to two failed engine tests? SLS delendam esse. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 07:36:07 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 02:36:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 12:41 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > In general I post here when I feel I have something to contribute. But > sometimes my contributions of the past were to FLAME MIGHTILY IN YODA MODE > when others would make absurd claims such as "people of country X have an > average IQ of VERY VERY LOW". > ### But there are countries where the average IQ is very low, compared to other countries. This is a well-verified fact, accepted by psychometricians. Countries do publish their IQ measurements and no, they are not all the same, and obviously some countries have lower IQ populations. Instead of ranting, educate yourself. Don't deny science. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Wed Jan 20 08:29:38 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:29:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On 20 Jan 2021, at 07:30, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 2:49 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > wrote: > >> >> Epidemiology is part of medical science, the methods to contain epidemics >> are not invented by politicians. >> >>> - > > > ### Epidemiologists are against lockdowns but politicians are willing to > pay a lot to some epidemiologists to provide justifications for increasing > their political power, and there are always clowns willing to lie. > > Rafal Do I even need to YODA this? "Epidemiologists are against lockdowns? To paraphrase: A quarantine, by any other name, helps keep the airborne droplets out of your smeller holes. At least you recycle Rafal! Like this fragment from every global warming conspiracy theory ever; " but politicians are willing to pay a lot to some epidemiologists?, just cut /climate scientists/ and you can adapt that to every cause you fight against. I will close with some of your wise word to REFLECT on; ? ...there are always clowns willing to lie.? Regards, Omar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 08:44:25 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:44:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 19, 2021, at 9:50 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: >> On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 9:47 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> Race as commonly used is, again, a social construct. > > ### Srsly? The inherited differences between the average Pygmy and the average Han being a social construct? Those are races? Who uses them that way? How many races are there? Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 08:56:14 2021 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:56:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <093E9966-427A-45D6-A809-D217B269A68A@gmail.com> On Jan 19, 2021, at 9:56 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: >> On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 9:56 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> To wit, crossing a national border per se doesn?t generate any rights issues for anyone. > > ### Nobody cares about national borders per se, we only care when their crossing creates issues. > > We don't mind if a sparrow flies over the border, we mind if the Hun invades. I thought it painfully obvious that by ?crossing a national border per se? was meant humans crossing said border. Also, I thought it painfully obvious that ?crossing a national border per se? only means the act of crossing. Just like it should be painfully obvious that walking per se doesn?t violate anyone?s right, but trampling someone does ? even though trampling is a form of walking, no? Let me try to be even more painfully clear here. The problem with the Huns invading is not that they?re crossing a border but that they?re attacking people and breaking stuff. (Anyone who believes almost all folks crossing national borders, illegally or not, now is the moral equivalent of an invading Hun is a fool.) Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Wed Jan 20 08:59:10 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:59:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On 20 Jan 2021, at 07:30, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > ### Let me describe some of my own childhood memories - when I was about 10 > years old, meat was scarce in Poland. It would be delivered to stores in > the morning. First the local communist party would show up at the back > door. Then the police would show up, also at the back door. Then doctors > might come by and quickly pick up some items from under the counter. The > butcher's family would eat whatever he carried out in his bag. Finally the > general population would get whatever was left over. Since my father was a > doctor and very popular with his patients, including the butcher, I did get > to eat meat often. You meat stealer! It seems your sociopathy is hereditary and/or began at a young age: meat stealer! My wife was in the line at the front of the shop! > And I still do! This week so far I had beef, bison and incredibly delicious > BBQ ribs. There is some foie gras and an ostrich in the freezer. > > Life is good. > > Rafal You are also a barbarian! Who the hell freezes foie gras? (It loses flavor, you savage!) We in Warsaw still have to line up?.but now it is for reservations at Nobu, Michelin starred restaurants, etc. Life is better without meat stealers, Omar Rahman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 09:17:04 2021 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 04:17:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] president's cabinet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Fuck the earth amirite? On Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 2:23 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 6:20 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> It will now contain a science advisor who is a geneticist and >> mathematician, and director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. The >> post had been vacant for 18 months. This is now a cabinet level position. >> > > ### Biden's track record on science is awful. Bama and Biden (sounds like > a comic duo, doesn't it?) had Steven Chu in the cabinet, a complete > wing-nut who thought his job as Secretary of Energy was to make sure gas > prices reach 9 $ per gallon. Or that barking dimwit Holdren... Or the > anti-nuclear activist they put in charge of the NRC. > > But since Bama days they cranked up crazy to eleven. Three words - New > Green Deal. > >> >> I just hope all of this is not going to be like putting Humpty Dumpty >> together again. The EPA was nearly broken. >> >> ### The EPA should be eliminated, its buildings burned down and the ruins > sprinkled with uranium salt, just to make sure it doesn't regrow. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Jan 20 10:09:55 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 05:09:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 3:31 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On 20 Jan 2021, at 07:30, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 2:49 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Epidemiology is part of medical science, the methods to contain epidemics > are not invented by politicians. > > - > > > > ### Epidemiologists are against lockdowns but politicians are willing to > pay a lot to some epidemiologists to provide justifications for increasing > their political power, and there are always clowns willing to lie. > > Rafal > > > Do I even need to YODA this? "Epidemiologists are against lockdowns? > > To paraphrase: A quarantine, by any other name, helps keep the airborne > droplets out of your smeller holes. > ### At what cost, boy, at what cost? Epidemiologists since forever pointed out that quarantines don't work once there is widespread community spread of a highly infectious agent. This is received wisdom, basic epidemiology and yet you behave as if I was saying something outrageous. As I told you, you need to read more, rant less. ------------------- > > At least you recycle Rafal! Like this fragment from every global warming > conspiracy theory ever; " but politicians are willing to pay a lot to some > epidemiologists?, just cut /climate scientists/ and you can adapt that to > every cause you fight against. > ### Well, as politics encroaches on more and more of our lives, so more and more of the formerly scientific areas of inquiry are corrupted by it. First they corrupted psychometrics, then climate science, now epidemiology. If you read the primary literature in these subject areas, as I do, the pattern would be obvious to you too. ---------------- > > I will close with some of your wise word to REFLECT on; ? ...there are > always clowns willing to lie.? > > ### Your meaning is unclear here. Would you mind explaining it to me? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Wed Jan 20 10:13:36 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 11:13:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16D54A56-42E9-4615-82F3-34DBFE3A4CB3@me.com> > On 20 Jan 2021, at 10:17, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 12:41 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > wrote: > >> >> In general I post here when I feel I have something to contribute. But >> sometimes my contributions of the past were to FLAME MIGHTILY IN YODA MODE >> when others would make absurd claims such as "people of country X have an >> average IQ of VERY VERY LOW". >> > > ### But there are countries where the average IQ is very low, compared to > other countries. This is a well-verified fact, accepted by > psychometricians. Some psychometricians ?while most concentrate on factors like early childhood nutrition, educational opportunities, presence/absence of widespread conflict, etc. > Countries do publish their IQ measurements and no, they > are not all the same, and obviously some countries have lower IQ > populations. Instead of ranting, educate yourself. > > Don't deny science. > > Rafal I don?t deny science, but I don?t see a causal connection between drawing lines on a map and the functioning of neurons. Could you explain the mechanism? Omar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 10:14:42 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 05:14:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 3:46 AM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 19, 2021, at 9:50 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 9:47 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> Race as commonly used is, again, a social construct. > > > ### Srsly? The inherited differences between the average Pygmy and the > average Han being a social construct? > > > Those are races? Who uses them that way? How many races are there? > > ### Pygmies are members of the Negroid race. Han are members of the Mongoloid race. Anthropologists use these terms. Cladistically you can play around with the number of races but the most common number is 3, corresponding to major groups that had little if any cross-flow of genes in the past 50 to 100 k years. You can have more races, if you are a splitter, not a lumper. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 10:21:12 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 05:21:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] very informative In-Reply-To: <093E9966-427A-45D6-A809-D217B269A68A@gmail.com> References: <093E9966-427A-45D6-A809-D217B269A68A@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 3:57 AM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I thought it painfully obvious that by ?crossing a national border per se? > was meant humans crossing said border. > > Also, I thought it painfully obvious that ?crossing a national border per > se? only means the act of crossing. Just like it should be painfully > obvious that walking per se doesn?t violate anyone?s right, but trampling > someone does ? even though trampling is a form of walking, no? > > Let me try to be even more painfully clear here. The problem with the Huns > invading is not that they?re crossing a border but that they?re attacking > people and breaking stuff. (Anyone who believes almost all folks crossing > national borders, illegally or not, now is the moral equivalent of an > invading Hun is a fool.) > ### Well, national borders, appropriately defended, help alleviate the Hun problem. Since maintaining a selective Hun-only border, freely permeable to all non-Huns, is technically challenging, the specific implementation is non-permeable to all, with special areas, called border-crossings, where Huns are separated from non-Huns. Now, if some non-Huns insist on crossing the border outside of the designated border-crossing, they impair our ability to keep non-Huns out and thus, by the act of crossing the border, infringe on our right of defense against the Huns. Isn't this obvious? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 10:44:50 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 05:44:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <16D54A56-42E9-4615-82F3-34DBFE3A4CB3@me.com> References: <16D54A56-42E9-4615-82F3-34DBFE3A4CB3@me.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 5:18 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On 20 Jan 2021, at 10:17, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 12:41 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > In general I post here when I feel I have something to contribute. But > sometimes my contributions of the past were to FLAME MIGHTILY IN YODA MODE > when others would make absurd claims such as "people of country X have an > average IQ of VERY VERY LOW". > > > ### But there are countries where the average IQ is very low, compared to > other countries. This is a well-verified fact, accepted by > psychometricians. > > > Some psychometricians ?while most concentrate on factors like early > childhood nutrition, educational opportunities, presence/absence of > widespread conflict, etc. > ### So you say "It's absurd to claim people of country X have low IQ" and then in the next sentence you imply (paraphrasing here) "early childhood nutrition explains IQ differences". You seem to speak of the measurement and then speak of the explanation of the results of measurement, and your statements on these two issues appear to be incongruous. As it is, measured intelligence differs between different countries. This is an established fact. Scientists do not argue about that fact anymore. The existing, unequivocal and significant differences can be explained by many factors, including nutrition and others, and the explanations are still under debate. -------------------------- > > Countries do publish their IQ measurements and no, they > are not all the same, and obviously some countries have lower IQ > populations. Instead of ranting, educate yourself. > > Don't deny science. > > Rafal > > > I don?t deny science, but I don?t see a causal connection between drawing > lines on a map and the functioning of neurons. > > Could you explain the mechanism? > > ### People stick together with their own relatives. On a larger scale, cohesive social structures emerge among people sharing culture, which usually comes from shared ancestry, which implies shared genes. Different social structures coalesce out of genetically different populations, so different social groups will differ in their language, culture and yes, also intelligence. Drawing map lines helps here but is not necessary. It's the reproductive isolation that matters, which is why the Parsees, the Brahmin jatis and the Ashkenazim are smarter than their surrounding populations. We could argue whether such diversity is good, or bad, or just unavoidable, but the brute fact that the diversity of IQ exists should be just accepted. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 10:47:53 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 05:47:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] president's cabinet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 4:17 AM Will Steinberg wrote: > Fuck the earth amirite? > ### It's more like "Don't fuck with us normal people" (no matter what dumb white-owl-saving excuse you have). Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 10:55:57 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 05:55:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 4:04 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On 20 Jan 2021, at 07:30, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > ### Let me describe some of my own childhood memories - when I was about 10 > years old, meat was scarce in Poland. It would be delivered to stores in > the morning. First the local communist party would show up at the back > door. Then the police would show up, also at the back door. Then doctors > might come by and quickly pick up some items from under the counter. The > butcher's family would eat whatever he carried out in his bag. Finally the > general population would get whatever was left over. Since my father was a > doctor and very popular with his patients, including the butcher, I did get > to eat meat often. > > > You meat stealer! It seems your sociopathy is hereditary and/or began at a > young age: meat stealer! > > My wife was in the line at the front of the shop! > ### To the best of my knowledge I am not a sociopath. I have moderate narcissistic tendencies but I lack the machiavellianism of true psychopaths. Also, my dad paid for the meat. ------------------------- > > You are also a barbarian! Who the hell freezes foie gras? (It loses > flavor, you savage!) > ### It came frozen. ------------------------- > > We in Warsaw still have to line up?.but now it is for reservations at > Nobu, Michelin starred restaurants, etc. > > Life is better without meat stealers, > > ### Communists stole more than meat - they stole hope, lives and freedom. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 13:29:12 2021 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 14:29:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: If you are looking for a way to provoke an Estonian on the same level as talking 2:amendment with an USAian, tell them that they are a Soviet residue. Won't go well, with an option for physical re-education..... And are in all aspects totally wrong. They were never a good part of the Soviet block, armed resistance vere sporadically present during all of the 50ies and a significant percentage of the population were deported to function as hostages for the entire country. And they were among the first to defect from Soviet oppression if not the first. Estonia is very liberal in all those ways that most of us think of liberalism. Taking responsibility for your own identity are one of many things they do well and if you are willing to play by their rules even you in the democratic tyrrany of the Californian states are able to get an Estonian Identity. https://www.visitestonia.com/en/why-estonia/12-digital-services-in-e-estonia You won't have the same rights as an Estonian citizen but can do quite a lot with it. I recommend getting one, it is hard core individual liberalism in action. /Henrik > Hi Stuart, > > The main argument against the USA issuing national ID is that Americans > have > the right to privacy encoded in the constitution, article 4. The Estonians > do not. Estonians must do whatever their government orders. It is a > former > Soviet bloc country > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 20 14:42:15 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 06:42:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat >? ###...Since my father was a doctor and very popular with his patients, including the butcher, I did get to eat meat often. ?And I still do! This week so far I had beef, bison and incredibly delicious BBQ ribs. There is some foie gras and an ostrich in the freezer. Life is good. Rafal Our friends grew up in Ukraine. They were physics students in Kiev when the accident happened at Chernobyl, which caused a lot of them to develop an attitude: they were expected to go out for the May Day parade when the physics students knew the radiation levels. They are connected to the Ukrainian expatriate community so I get access to some information I wouldn?t otherwise have. At a party one of the Ukrainians was telling of the way it was in the late 80s when western consumer goods were starting to become available. Not enough, but some. This caused new problems. Information became currency: they found out a truck was coming with such and such amount of candy to so and so location. His mother parked him in line. He was age 10 at that time. From his position he estimated a tossup whether he would go home with a bag of candy or empty-handed. After he had been there nearly two hours, two full-grown men in line just ahead of him got into a fight, not just a tussle but a serious fisticuffs match. It occurred to him that here he was, investing 2 hours of his youth and facing the risk of having an unconscious man fall on him or the other children in line, all for a 50% chance at scoring? a bag of candy. He decided to hell with it. Left without the candy but with a new and cynical attitude: why is it that western countries made all these wonderful things that we are reduced to fighting over? Why can?t we just set up a candy factory here in Ukraine and make our own? He decided to leave Ukraine at his first opportunity. He landed here. The Silicon Valley is a place with many expatriates from all over the world. Here is a good place to find first-hand experienced blood-spitting anti-communism. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 15:09:10 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:09:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Rafal- a hunter friend of mine says that the best meat he ever ate was elk. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 8:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > > >? ###...Since my father was a doctor and very popular with his patients, > including the butcher, I did get to eat meat often. ?And I still do! This > week so far I had beef, bison and incredibly delicious BBQ ribs. There is > some foie gras and an ostrich in the freezer. > > > > Life is good. > > > > Rafal > > > > > > > > Our friends grew up in Ukraine. They were physics students in Kiev when > the accident happened at Chernobyl, which caused a lot of them to develop > an attitude: they were expected to go out for the May Day parade when the > physics students knew the radiation levels. > > > > They are connected to the Ukrainian expatriate community so I get access > to some information I wouldn?t otherwise have. > > > > At a party one of the Ukrainians was telling of the way it was in the late > 80s when western consumer goods were starting to become available. Not > enough, but some. This caused new problems. Information became currency: > they found out a truck was coming with such and such amount of candy to so > and so location. His mother parked him in line. He was age 10 at that > time. From his position he estimated a tossup whether he would go home > with a bag of candy or empty-handed. > > > > After he had been there nearly two hours, two full-grown men in line just > ahead of him got into a fight, not just a tussle but a serious fisticuffs > match. It occurred to him that here he was, investing 2 hours of his youth > and facing the risk of having an unconscious man fall on him or the other > children in line, all for a 50% chance at scoring? a bag of candy. > > > > He decided to hell with it. Left without the candy but with a new and > cynical attitude: why is it that western countries made all these wonderful > things that we are reduced to fighting over? Why can?t we just set up a > candy factory here in Ukraine and make our own? > > > > He decided to leave Ukraine at his first opportunity. He landed here. > > > > The Silicon Valley is a place with many expatriates from all over the > world. Here is a good place to find first-hand experienced blood-spitting > anti-communism. > > > > 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 Jan 20 15:19:59 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:19:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: <20210109070355.Horde.3gPeQAXvYfRmeUuENDOfRwP@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: A little bit makes a difference: the last data I saw on IQ of Jewish people showed their average to be 105. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 12:33 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 10:05 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> Here is some interesting data that might cheer up some of those on this >> list: >> >> >> https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/main-factors-driving-population-growth/pf_15-04-02_ch1graphics_lifeexpectancyreligion310px/ >> >> Apparently atheists have a higher life expectancy than any religion >> except for Jews. Ashkenazi Jews have been noted by medical science for >> their genetic predisposition to long life but the results for atheists >> are surprising. After all atheists have no qualms about eating pork or >> imbibing alcohol or doing drugs. I am not sure what genetic effects >> might be present there. Might it boil down to relative income? >> >> ### IQ, the dark matter of all matters sociological, invisible except to > those who got those nifty eyeglasses from "They Live". > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 20 15:23:52 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:23:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] free speech In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ### Really? Just think about all the true things you are afraid of saying among liberals Ragal There is nothing I will not talk about or say to this group or any other group. What gave you this idea? I have already written here that Blacks are not my tribe and there are many instances in which I would be for a white side playing Black teams. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 12:58 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 10:04 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> There's no one more in favor of free speech than liberals. In fact, I >> would say that historically, free speech dominated liberal thinking. The >> word does mean 'free' after all. Liberate speech. Thomas Paine. >> > > ### Really? Just think about all the true things you are afraid of saying > among liberals. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 20 15:27:16 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:27:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] hot fire fail In-Reply-To: References: <006e01d6ec7a$056bbb80$10433280$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: It's 'delendam est - from the Carthagenian quote. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 1:31 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 9:41 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Dang, the NASA RS-25 hot fire test was a fail: >> >> >> >> https://spacenews.com/green-run-hotfire-test-ends-early/ >> >> >> >> Capitalist Musk is eating the government?s lunch. >> >> >> > > ### Aren't they using 40 year old engine technology salvaged from the > Space Shuttle program? Aren't they building a non-reusable system using 60 > year old technologies that was obsolete even before the first billion > dollars was spent? Haven't they spent 35 billion dollars so far, just to > get to two failed engine tests? > > SLS delendam esse. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 20 15:29:53 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:29:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In fact IQs of other countries are probably inaccurate. Some give the test in English to people whose first language is not English. I would not guarantee the validity of those scores. Developing an IQ test for a non English population is a difficult and costly thing. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 1:37 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 12:41 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> In general I post here when I feel I have something to contribute. But >> sometimes my contributions of the past were to FLAME MIGHTILY IN YODA MODE >> when others would make absurd claims such as "people of country X have an >> average IQ of VERY VERY LOW". >> > > ### But there are countries where the average IQ is very low, compared to > other countries. This is a well-verified fact, accepted by > psychometricians. Countries do publish their IQ measurements and no, they > are not all the same, and obviously some countries have lower IQ > populations. Instead of ranting, educate yourself. > > Don't deny science. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 20 15:39:58 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:39:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <16D54A56-42E9-4615-82F3-34DBFE3A4CB3@me.com> Message-ID: We could argue whether such diversity is good, or bad, or just unavoidable, but the brute fact that the diversity of IQ exists should be just accepted. Rafal Maybe odd but understandable: people accept such things as Black are superior athletes (at least at the upper tail of the distribution) but when it comes to IQ people shut up and deny. Since IQ has a heritability of 1/2 or better it would be totally amazing if it was a constant all over the world. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 4:46 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 5:18 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On 20 Jan 2021, at 10:17, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 12:41 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> In general I post here when I feel I have something to contribute. But >> sometimes my contributions of the past were to FLAME MIGHTILY IN YODA MODE >> when others would make absurd claims such as "people of country X have an >> average IQ of VERY VERY LOW". >> >> >> ### But there are countries where the average IQ is very low, compared to >> other countries. This is a well-verified fact, accepted by >> psychometricians. >> >> >> Some psychometricians ?while most concentrate on factors like early >> childhood nutrition, educational opportunities, presence/absence of >> widespread conflict, etc. >> > > ### So you say "It's absurd to claim people of country X have low IQ" and > then in the next sentence you imply (paraphrasing here) "early childhood > nutrition explains IQ differences". You seem to speak of the measurement > and then speak of the explanation of the results of measurement, and your > statements on these two issues appear to be incongruous. > > As it is, measured intelligence differs between different countries. This > is an established fact. Scientists do not argue about that fact anymore. > The existing, unequivocal and significant differences can be explained by > many factors, including nutrition and others, and the explanations are > still under debate. > > > -------------------------- > >> >> Countries do publish their IQ measurements and no, they >> are not all the same, and obviously some countries have lower IQ >> populations. Instead of ranting, educate yourself. >> >> Don't deny science. >> >> Rafal >> >> >> I don?t deny science, but I don?t see a causal connection between drawing >> lines on a map and the functioning of neurons. >> > >> Could you explain the mechanism? >> >> ### People stick together with their own relatives. On a larger scale, > cohesive social structures emerge among people sharing culture, which > usually comes from shared ancestry, which implies shared genes. Different > social structures coalesce out of genetically different populations, so > different social groups will differ in their language, culture and yes, > also intelligence. Drawing map lines helps here but is not necessary. It's > the reproductive isolation that matters, which is why the Parsees, the > Brahmin jatis and the Ashkenazim are smarter than their surrounding > populations. > > We could argue whether such diversity is good, or bad, or just > unavoidable, but the brute fact that the diversity of IQ exists should be > just accepted. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 20 15:41:51 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:41:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] president's cabinet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So with whom would you leave the development of clean air and clean water laws and enforcement? bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 4:51 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 4:17 AM Will Steinberg > wrote: > >> Fuck the earth amirite? >> > > ### It's more like "Don't fuck with us normal people" (no matter what dumb > white-owl-saving excuse you have). > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 20 15:46:20 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 07:46:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] hot fire fail In-Reply-To: References: <006e01d6ec7a$056bbb80$10433280$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <2ddd5893-9f95-719b-2d95-1c9455082207@pobox.com> > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 1:31 AM Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> SLS delendam esse. On 2021-1-20 07:27, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > It's 'delendam?est - from the Carthagenian quote.? ?bill w Well, no, the short version is ?Carthago delenda est? (Carthage is a delend) and the original is ?Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam? (Furthermore I consider Carthage to be a delend). The longer contains the shorter as a subordinate clause, changing its syntax. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 16:18:41 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 16:18:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] hot fire fail In-Reply-To: <2ddd5893-9f95-719b-2d95-1c9455082207@pobox.com> References: <006e01d6ec7a$056bbb80$10433280$@rainier66.com> <2ddd5893-9f95-719b-2d95-1c9455082207@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 20 Jan 2021 at 15:54, Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat wrote: > > Well, no, the short version is ?Carthago delenda est? (Carthage is a > delend) and the original is ?Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse > delendam? (Furthermore I consider Carthage to be a delend). The longer > contains the shorter as a subordinate clause, changing its syntax. > -- > *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org > _______________________________________________ Agreed! The complete (unbelievably complicated) explanation is here: :) BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 17:18:18 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 11:18:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Latin Message-ID: I knew it couldn't be 'esse' but the other? Well, I realized that it has been 60 years since I finished my three years of Latin! bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 20 17:29:03 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:29:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <026201d6ef51$bfd36520$3f7a2f60$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Henrik Ohrstrom via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Immaculate Election >?If you are looking for a way to provoke an Estonian on the same level as talking 2:amendment with an USAian, tell them that they are a Soviet residue. Won't go well, with an option for physical re-education..... And are in all aspects totally wrong? Cool thanks for that Henrik. I am proud of Estonia. They sound libertarian and enlightened. >?They were never a good part of the Soviet block?/Henrik Sounds to me like they were the best part of the Soviet bloc. Giving in to authoritarianism results in totalitarianism. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 17:37:23 2021 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 12:37:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] president's cabinet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The earth is polluted to shit though. It's not about saving owls it's about saving humans you dumbfuck lol. Cancer rates are higher than ever, our air is garbage, our water is garbage, unchecked corporations don't give a shit. I'm more into pigouvian taxes than mandates. But your views are right-wing to the point of being comical. Extremism never works. Based and centrist-pilled On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 5:51 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 4:17 AM Will Steinberg > wrote: > >> Fuck the earth amirite? >> > > ### It's more like "Don't fuck with us normal people" (no matter what dumb > white-owl-saving excuse you have). > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 20 17:41:01 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:41:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: <20210117210536.Horde.1zcIAftDTziKwRzqS3nYzOQ@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <001701d6eda7$204989e0$60dc9da0$@rainier66.com> <004501d6edab$d0bee410$723cac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <28e2a566-592a-58eb-405e-6a5f416f7098@pobox.com> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 10:10 AM spike jones wrote: >> However, we have always had face recognition. Now we have the >> technology to automate that process. It looks to me like there >> is no logical way to make use of face rec tech illegal. On 2021-1-18 07:40, Dave Sill via extropy-chat wrote: > It's easy to pass laws making it illegal. And easy for police to ignore or secretly sidestep such laws. (I would not expect Biden, let alone Harris, to enforce them.) -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 20 17:43:11 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 09:43:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <027901d6ef53$b9c88aa0$2d599fe0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard >?Rafal- a hunter friend of mine says that the best meat he ever ate was elk. bill w Hunters do say stuff like that, but I disagree. Elk is better than deer and veal but not as good as high-quality beef in my opinion. It is leaner, if one likes lean meat. I perfer fatty meat. Could be I didn?t get a good cut: not all beef is equal either. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 18:21:33 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 12:21:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] president's cabinet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Will, who are you addressing? bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 11:39 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The earth is polluted to shit though. It's not about saving owls it's > about saving humans you dumbfuck lol. Cancer rates are higher than ever, > our air is garbage, our water is garbage, unchecked corporations don't give > a shit. > > I'm more into pigouvian taxes than mandates. But your views are > right-wing to the point of being comical. Extremism never works. Based > and centrist-pilled > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 5:51 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 4:17 AM Will Steinberg >> wrote: >> >>> Fuck the earth amirite? >>> >> >> ### It's more like "Don't fuck with us normal people" (no matter what >> dumb white-owl-saving excuse you have). >> >> Rafal >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Jan 20 18:28:38 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 12:28:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <027901d6ef53$b9c88aa0$2d599fe0$@rainier66.com> References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> <027901d6ef53$b9c88aa0$2d599fe0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike - a quote from my Dad "Fat's where the flavor is." I was a teen and cut away every single piece of fat I could find. (fat was yucky) Dad was so right. If you buy the cheapest grade of hamburger (highest fat) you get meat that tastes better than anything other than ribeye. Personally I have not tried elk. Not many around here. My last meal, if I get a choice, will be ribeye. Nearly rare. And grassfed. I was so happy to get whole milk that is organic and grassfed. Just the grassfed part makes all the difference in the taste, which is the best milk I have had since they quit having cows on the family plantation. I wish I had the opportunity to eat grassfed beef. Probably available in big cities. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 11:49 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] geezer guard > > > > >?Rafal- a hunter friend of mine says that the best meat he ever ate was > elk. bill w > > > > Hunters do say stuff like that, but I disagree. Elk is better than deer > and veal but not as good as high-quality beef in my opinion. It is leaner, > if one likes lean meat. I perfer fatty meat. Could be I didn?t get a good > cut: not all beef is equal either. > > > > 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 Jan 20 18:45:20 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 10:45:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> <027901d6ef53$b9c88aa0$2d599fe0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <02bb01d6ef5c$67f7a180$37e6e480$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] geezer guard >?Spike ?Personally I have not tried elk. Not many around here? I have heard elk herds are making a comeback on that side of the Mississippi. They were re-introduced into western Kentucky. I had elk at a restaurant in the Ozarks. I don?t know if it was local, probably not. If you really want it, you can buy venison online. Kinda pricy and frozen of course. My brother in law lives in a rural area about an hour drive from Seattle. The local Elk herd is a real pest there: always chewing on his trees and lawn. He is vegetarian, which seems like such a tragic waste of meat. >?Probably available in big cities. bill In the age of the internet, we are all in big cities, even those of us a kilometer from the nearest neighbor: https://www.elkusa.com/elk_meat.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_p3jupWr7gIV-gutBh0ulwFjEAAYASAAEgLChvD_BwE spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Wed Jan 20 20:00:28 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 21:00:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <19B4A071-61EA-4A1E-95C0-07B148F2912F@me.com> > On 20 Jan 2021, at 16:09, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > >> >> Could you explain the mechanism? >> >> ### People stick together with their own relatives. On a larger scale, > cohesive social structures emerge among people sharing culture, which > usually comes from shared ancestry, which implies shared genes. Different > social structures coalesce out of genetically different populations, so > different social groups will differ in their language, culture and yes, > also intelligence. > Drawing map lines helps here but is not necessary. Ok, so it?s not maps?. Damn, I was just about to gerrymander myself a map with all the sexy, smart, and rich people as a means of self improvement. (Which is the real purpose of gated communities actually.) > It?s the reproductive isolation that matters, which is why the Parsees, the > Brahmin jatis and the Ashkenazim are smarter than their surrounding > populations. So it?s not maps, but it IS RACISM, ok gotcha. (Even if you sugar coat it by saying some minorities are BETTER?well?it?s still racism.) > We could argue whether such diversity is good, or bad, or just unavoidable, > but the brute fact that the diversity of IQ exists should be just accepted. > > Rafal Diversity of exists between individuals, and diversity of exists between the average of one group and the average of another. What?s important is how you define the group and a racial definition is laughable. Omar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 20:12:25 2021 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 15:12:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <19B4A071-61EA-4A1E-95C0-07B148F2912F@me.com> References: <19B4A071-61EA-4A1E-95C0-07B148F2912F@me.com> Message-ID: You?re just being uptight because the conclusion makes you uncomfortable. SR Ballard > On Jan 20, 2021, at 3:02 PM, Omar Rahman via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > >>>> On 20 Jan 2021, at 16:09, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Could you explain the mechanism? >>>> >>>> ### People stick together with their own relatives. On a larger scale, >>> cohesive social structures emerge among people sharing culture, which >>> usually comes from shared ancestry, which implies shared genes. Different >>> social structures coalesce out of genetically different populations, so >>> different social groups will differ in their language, culture and yes, >>> also intelligence. >> >> Drawing map lines helps here but is not necessary. > > Ok, so it?s not maps?. Damn, I was just about to gerrymander myself a map with all the sexy, smart, and rich people as a means of self improvement. (Which is the real purpose of gated communities actually.) > >> It?s the reproductive isolation that matters, which is why the Parsees, the >> Brahmin jatis and the Ashkenazim are smarter than their surrounding >> populations. > > So it?s not maps, but it IS RACISM, ok gotcha. (Even if you sugar coat it by saying some minorities are BETTER?well?it?s still racism.) > >> We could argue whether such diversity is good, or bad, or just unavoidable, >> but the brute fact that the diversity of IQ exists should be just accepted. >> >> Rafal > > Diversity of exists between individuals, and diversity of exists between the average of one group and the average of another. What?s important is how you define the group and a racial definition is laughable. > > Omar > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 rahmans at me.com Wed Jan 20 20:23:05 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 21:23:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On 20 Jan 2021, at 16:09, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > >> >> On 20 Jan 2021, at 07:30, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: >> >> On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 2:49 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > wrote: >> >> >> Epidemiology is part of medical science, the methods to contain epidemics >> are not invented by politicians. >> >> - >> >> >> >> ### Epidemiologists are against lockdowns but politicians are willing to >> pay a lot to some epidemiologists to provide justifications for increasing >> their political power, and there are always clowns willing to lie. >> >> Rafal >> >> >> Do I even need to YODA this? "Epidemiologists are against lockdowns? >> >> To paraphrase: A quarantine, by any other name, helps keep the airborne >> droplets out of your smeller holes. >> > > ### At what cost, boy, at what cost? At almost no cost, child, at almost no cost. Maybe that?s your problem Rafal, you are framing things in terms of cost instead of health outcomes. > Epidemiologists since forever pointed out that quarantines don't work once > there is widespread community spread of a highly infectious agent. This is > received wisdom, basic epidemiology and yet you behave as if I was saying > something outrageous. You?ve got it backwards, community spread is the signal for further and stricter quarantine measures, not to despair and start coughing on Grandma. You see, by disrupting the regular action of the community, you disrupt community spread. > I will close with some of your wise word to REFLECT on; ? ...there are > always clowns willing to lie.? > > ### Your meaning is unclear here. Would you mind explaining it to me? It means, look in a goddamned mirror Rafal. Omar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 20 20:35:58 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 14:35:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: <02bb01d6ef5c$67f7a180$37e6e480$@rainier66.com> References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> <027901d6ef53$b9c88aa0$2d599fe0$@rainier66.com> <02bb01d6ef5c$67f7a180$37e6e480$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Mt Electra, or something like that. In Yellowstone park. I worked there one summer probably 1960. Did not see elk, but climbed that mountain. Took four hours. Going down was jumping and sliding - about 20 minutes. So I had to twist my ankle, right? Looked around, saw an elk rack, took one and used it as a crutch on the way down. Never did see an elk. Bear, yes - not grizzly. Very careful with their garbage up there. I am swearing off frozen meat. I can get ribeye whole for $7 a pound bone-in, but it's just not the same as fresh, so I'll pay $14 a pound and consider it a good deal. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 12:47 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] geezer guard > > > > >?Spike ?Personally I have not tried elk. Not many around here? > > > > I have heard elk herds are making a comeback on that side of the > Mississippi. They were re-introduced into western Kentucky. I had elk at > a restaurant in the Ozarks. I don?t know if it was local, probably not. > > > > If you really want it, you can buy venison online. Kinda pricy and frozen > of course. My brother in law lives in a rural area about an hour drive > from Seattle. The local Elk herd is a real pest there: always chewing on > his trees and lawn. He is vegetarian, which seems like such a tragic waste > of meat. > > > > >?Probably available in big cities. bill > > > > In the age of the internet, we are all in big cities, even those of us a > kilometer from the nearest neighbor: > > > > > https://www.elkusa.com/elk_meat.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_p3jupWr7gIV-gutBh0ulwFjEAAYASAAEgLChvD_BwE > > > > 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 Jan 20 20:40:24 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 14:40:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <19B4A071-61EA-4A1E-95C0-07B148F2912F@me.com> References: <19B4A071-61EA-4A1E-95C0-07B148F2912F@me.com> Message-ID: What?s important is how you define the group and a racial definition is laughable. Omar That is esp. true in the US among blacks, since (probably) a large majority have 'white genes'. Still, there are discrepancies. Oddly, my lily white first wife and mother of my children turned out to have some African genes. (I do not.) Can't tell a thing from looks, personality, or IQ of the kids (now in their 50s). bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 2:02 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On 20 Jan 2021, at 16:09, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > > Could you explain the mechanism? > > ### People stick together with their own relatives. On a larger scale, > > cohesive social structures emerge among people sharing culture, which > usually comes from shared ancestry, which implies shared genes. Different > social structures coalesce out of genetically different populations, so > different social groups will differ in their language, culture and yes, > also intelligence. > > > Drawing map lines helps here but is not necessary. > > > Ok, so it?s not maps?. Damn, I was just about to gerrymander myself a > map with all the sexy, smart, and rich people as a means of self > improvement. (Which is the real purpose of gated communities actually.) > > It?s the reproductive isolation that matters, which is why the Parsees, > the > Brahmin jatis and the Ashkenazim are smarter than their surrounding > populations. > > > So it?s not maps, but it IS RACISM, ok gotcha. (Even if you sugar coat it > by saying some minorities are BETTER?well?it?s still racism.) > > We could argue whether such diversity is good, or bad, or just unavoidable, > but the brute fact that the diversity of IQ exists should be just accepted. > > Rafal > > > Diversity of exists between individuals, and diversity of > exists between the average of one group and the average of > another. What?s important is how you define the group and a racial > definition is laughable. > > Omar > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Wed Jan 20 21:48:11 2021 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 16:48:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] west virginia leads... was: RE: Immaculate Election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <14242174-1D4A-460E-A8DA-9DE7A459FEAD@alumni.virginia.edu> In support of this see: https://theconversation.com/heres-how-scientists-are-tracking-the-genetic-evolution-of-covid-19-134201 ?Based on current data, it seems as though SARS-CoV-2 mutates much more slowly than the seasonal flu. Specifically, SARS-CoV-2 seems to have a mutation rate of less than 25 mutations per year, whereas the seasonal flu has a mutation rate of almost 50 mutations per year. Given that the SARS-CoV-2 genome is almost twice as large as the seasonal flu genome, it seems as though the seasonal flu mutates roughly four times as fast as SARS-CoV-2. The fact that the seasonal flu mutates so quickly is precisely why it is able to evade our vaccines, so the significantly slower mutation rate of SARS-CoV-2 gives us hope for the potential development of effective long-lasting vaccines against the virus.? > On Jan 20, 2021, at 2:12 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > >> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 4:33 AM BillK via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> 2) If COVID mutates rapidly (as seems to be happening) then there may >> need to be an annual vaccination, like the flu jab every winter. >> > ### This is highly unlikely, at least not for the reason you mention. The flu has a genetic structure that encourages gene swapping between different strains, thus often creating new and substantially different strains of the virus. Coronaviruses do not have that gene swapping mechanism and the Wuhan virus is only likely to slowly accumulate mutations, mostly point mutations, like other coronaviruses. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 20 22:34:39 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 09:34:39 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 20 Jan 2021 at 21:11, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 3:31 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> On 20 Jan 2021, at 07:30, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: >> >> On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 2:49 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> >> Epidemiology is part of medical science, the methods to contain epidemics >> are not invented by politicians. >> >> - >> >> >> >> ### Epidemiologists are against lockdowns but politicians are willing to >> pay a lot to some epidemiologists to provide justifications for increasing >> their political power, and there are always clowns willing to lie. >> >> Rafal >> >> >> Do I even need to YODA this? "Epidemiologists are against lockdowns? >> >> To paraphrase: A quarantine, by any other name, helps keep the airborne >> droplets out of your smeller holes. >> > > ### At what cost, boy, at what cost? > > Epidemiologists since forever pointed out that quarantines don't work once > there is widespread community spread of a highly infectious agent. This is > received wisdom, basic epidemiology and yet you behave as if I was saying > something outrageous. > > As I told you, you need to read more, rant less. > > ------------------- > > >> >> At least you recycle Rafal! Like this fragment from every global warming >> conspiracy theory ever; " but politicians are willing to pay a lot to some >> epidemiologists?, just cut /climate scientists/ and you can adapt that to >> every cause you fight against. >> > > ### Well, as politics encroaches on more and more of our lives, so more > and more of the formerly scientific areas of inquiry are corrupted by it. > First they corrupted psychometrics, then climate science, now epidemiology. > If you read the primary literature in these subject areas, as I do, the > pattern would be obvious to you too. > Suppose there were an epidemic of a more dangerous virus, as there probably will be at some point, and epidemiologists agree that lockdowns and other measures to separate people from each other would help. Should we implement those measures or just accept that hundreds of millions will die? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 20 22:57:58 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 14:57:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >?Suppose there were an epidemic of a more dangerous virus? How much more dangerous and how much more contagious? >? and epidemiologists agree? How many epidemiologists? Qualifications necessary? >? that lockdowns and other measures to separate people from each other would help? How much does it help? Does it help more than it harms? >? Should we implement those measures or just accept that hundreds of millions will die? -- Stathis Papaioannou We don?t know that hundreds of millions would die. That?s the problem. We are asked to do these things but no one really knows how these pandemics will play out. There have been over 2 million covid deaths. How can we know something else will cause hundreds of millions? How many died because of lockdowns? We don?t know. Stathis this question cannot be simplified. After all this, we still don?t know the answers to some very fundamental questions. We can compare states however, such as California and Florida. They both have a lot of international travel, plenty of domestic travel, similar climate, similar population demographics, about twice as many people in California but those two are perhaps our best test case. California is and has been on lockdowns, schools closed, masks required, strict protocols. Florida ended all that in September. This is what happened. California has twice the population and three times the new case rate: How are these two or more epidemiologists going to resurrect enough credibility when they predict hundreds of millions of deaths? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 27738 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 32545 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rahmans at me.com Thu Jan 21 00:31:27 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 01:31:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust Message-ID: <7401B400-467D-4886-9A2D-0A6547A47EBC@me.com> Nope, not uptight at all SR Ballard, because the ?conclusion? is facile bullshit. The myth that ?races? exist is the fundamental myth of racism. People of ?mixed race? used to be called ?mulatto?, as in ?like mules?, a separate sterile species. But the truth is that we are all some sort of mix. Genes and environmental factors, however, do exist, and have actual explanatory power. Omar > On 20 Jan 2021, at 23:42, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > Subject: Re: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > You?re just being uptight because the conclusion makes you uncomfortable. > > SR Ballard From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 21 00:53:31 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 16:53:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <7401B400-467D-4886-9A2D-0A6547A47EBC@me.com> References: <7401B400-467D-4886-9A2D-0A6547A47EBC@me.com> Message-ID: <000001d6ef8f$d73cdbe0$85b693a0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Omar Rahman via extropy-chat >...Genes and environmental factors, however, do exist, and have actual explanatory power. Omar Ja. Cultures exist too, and they definitely impact collective performance on IQ tests and every other kind of test. Clearly we are free to choose whatever culture we want to be in, at any time. We can switch from one to another, embrace any culture we want, reject any culture we want, emulate but not parody or ridicule, all fair game, ja? Regardless of our genes, we have freedom of culture. I have a hard time imagining anyone would argue with that notion. Are there any limits to that notion? spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:01:05 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:01:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Atheists catch a break In-Reply-To: References: <20210109070355.Horde.3gPeQAXvYfRmeUuENDOfRwP@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 10:20 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > A little bit makes a difference: the last data I saw on IQ of Jewish > people showed their average to be 105. bill w > ### Not the Ashkenazim. Their average IQ is 113. Sephardim and Mizrahim are on the other hand of average intelligence, so Jewish nation's intelligence as a whole goes down with them included. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:02:07 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:02:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 6:00 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > >?Suppose there were an epidemic of a more dangerous virus? > > > > How much more dangerous and how much more contagious? > We know at first, of course. > >? that lockdowns and other measures to separate people from each other > would help? > > > > How much does it help? Does it help more than it harms? > We won't know that, either. >? Should we implement those measures or just accept that hundreds of > millions will die? > > > > We don?t know that hundreds of millions would die. That?s the problem. > We are asked to do these things but no one really knows how these pandemics > will play out. There have been over 2 million covid deaths. How can we > know something else will cause hundreds of millions? How many died because > of lockdowns? We don?t know. > Right, so not knowing the answers in advance, seems like we have to err on the side of caution. We did that with covid, but we were slow to back off once it became clear that covid wasn't so bad. Stathis this question cannot be simplified. After all this, we still don?t > know the answers to some very fundamental questions. > Yea, but after we've digested this a few years, hopefully we'll be better prepared for the next pandemic. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:09:56 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:09:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <7401B400-467D-4886-9A2D-0A6547A47EBC@me.com> References: <7401B400-467D-4886-9A2D-0A6547A47EBC@me.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 7:33 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > The myth that ?races? exist is the fundamental myth of racism. Races clearly exist. > People of ?mixed race? used to be called ?mulatto?, as in ?like mules?, a > separate sterile species. Yeah, that's bullshit racism. But the truth is that we are all some sort of mix. > That's true too. But the fact that racial purity doesn't really exist doesn't mean that races don't exist. Genes and environmental factors, however, do exist, and have actual > explanatory power. > Races are genetic. Environmental factors can alter genetics. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:10:13 2021 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:10:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <19B4A071-61EA-4A1E-95C0-07B148F2912F@me.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 3:43 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > . > Omar That is esp. true in the US among blacks, since (probably) a > large majority have 'white genes'. Still, there are discrepancies. Oddly, > my lily white first wife and mother of my children turned out to have some > African genes. (I do not.) Can't tell a thing from looks, personality, or > IQ of the kids (now in their 50s). bill w > I'm surprised you share that the kids' IQ are now in their 50s... j/k but too humorous a juxtaposition to not comment > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:25:12 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:25:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 5:34 PM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Suppose there were an epidemic of a more dangerous virus, as there > probably will be at some point, and epidemiologists agree that lockdowns > and other measures to separate people from each other would help. Should we > implement those measures or just accept that hundreds of millions will die? > ### Yes, of course we should take seriously what experts are telling us! If a lot of epidemiologists, free of political pressure one way or another, tell us "This is the big one, it's like smallpox but twice as bad, 90% mortality and spreads like chickenpox", we should act accordingly. A vaccine might be produced but not if 90% die, so an immediate quarantine is reasonable. The quarantine will kill millions of people but it's still better than billions from uncontrolled spread. You just need to check your premises, ask the correct questions, run the numbers and do what's needed. Of course, science is the art of making errors in order to learn from them. If a month later the epidemiologists say "We ran the numbers with the newest data and it looks like it was just like Covid", we should change policies - always treat data seriously.... and treat face-saving and heels-digging-in political antics with scorn. The problem with Covid was and is politicization. Instead of promptly responding to changing information, such as the dramatically lower CFRs and the information about uncontrollable community spread, which completely changed the cost-benefit ratio of various public health policy options, the system got stuck on responses which were based on initial and preliminary data, and thus incorrect. Instead of responding to new information they dug their heels in and doubled up on stupid. Lockdown for two weeks, then lockdown until vaccine, now lockdown forever. Instead of giving up on stupid, like the masks proven useless, and the 6ft distance proven irrelevant, they doubled down and imposed more. I really take science seriously. It's the political clowns who don't. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:33:55 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:33:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 8:11 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Right, so not knowing the answers in advance, seems like we have to err on > the side of caution. We did that with covid, but we were slow to back off > once it became clear that covid wasn't so bad. > > Stathis this question cannot be simplified. After all this, we still >> don?t know the answers to some very fundamental questions. >> > > Yea, but after we've digested this a few years, hopefully we'll be better > prepared for the next pandemic. > > ### The psychopaths in charge of the country didn't back off because they tasted more power and psychopaths never give up power. They'll use the next pandemic, whether actually worse than Covid, or not, to tighten the screws on us even more, now that Americans have shown themselves to be docile and easily lead with cheap propaganda gimmicks. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 21 01:34:19 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 17:34:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002b01d6ef95$8a97fb70$9fc7f250$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat >?Right, so not knowing the answers in advance, seems like we have to err on the side of caution?. Ja I hear ya Dave, but in this situation there is no side of caution. There isn?t even a middle of caution. If government under-reacts, it might contribute to more spread of disease. If government over-reacts, businesses fail, which causes lives to fail. There is no side of caution there. >?We did that with covid, but we were slow to back off once it became clear that covid wasn't so bad?. Ja. Then we have all the additional stuff like the one which is hard to miss: state legislatures never acted. So governors stepped in an wielded authority they don?t actually have. Many if not most, did the wrong thing with that illegitimately wielded power. Next time they won?t have that one chance they already misused. >?Yea, but after we've digested this a few years, hopefully we'll be better prepared for the next pandemic. -Dave You are more optimistic on that than I am Dave. Governments want to be our nannies. They generally did a poor job on covid. Now we don?t trust them. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:39:34 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:39:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] president's cabinet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 12:37 PM Will Steinberg wrote: > The earth is polluted to shit though. It's not about saving owls it's > about saving humans you dumbfuck lol. Cancer rates are higher than ever, > our air is garbage, our water is garbage, unchecked corporations don't give > a shit. > ### You shouldn't call me a dumbfuck. > > I'm more into pigouvian taxes than mandates. But your views are > right-wing to the point of being comical. Extremism never works. Based > and centrist-pilled > ### If you were a reasonable and polite person I would be happy to discuss non-ideological environmental policy with you but, as it is, you don't appear to be a worthy partner in discussion. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:45:31 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:45:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <19B4A071-61EA-4A1E-95C0-07B148F2912F@me.com> References: <19B4A071-61EA-4A1E-95C0-07B148F2912F@me.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 3:02 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It?s the reproductive isolation that matters, which is why the Parsees, > the > Brahmin jatis and the Ashkenazim are smarter than their surrounding > populations. > > > So it?s not maps, but it IS RACISM, ok gotcha. (Even if you sugar coat it > by saying some minorities are BETTER?well?it?s still racism.) > ### So if I say the Parsees are smart, it means I am a Capital Letter racist? You must be scraping the bottom of the barrel of your arguments there. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 21 01:51:01 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 17:51:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005f01d6ef97$dfa91a70$9efb4f50$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat >?### The psychopaths in charge of the country didn't back off because they tasted more power and psychopaths never give up power. They'll use the next pandemic, whether actually worse than Covid, or not, to tighten the screws on us even more, now that Americans have shown themselves to be docile and easily lead with cheap propaganda gimmicks. Rafal Rafal thanks for being here man. Having a front-line fighter with actual medical credentials is a great asset to the list. What really surprised me about my own neighborhood is how many locals who believed that the governor has the legal authority to make proclamations that are law or equivalent to law. Most of them believed that. I have never worn a mask outdoors, for safety reasons: if one does not wear a mask, then the proles give one lots of space. It works as a kind of people-repellant. The greater distance between me and the other proles protect us all. So I refuse to wear a mask outdoors for safety reasons. But I get people regularly asking me if I am afraid of getting caught without it. Caught by who? Is there a law I am required to wear one? I ask. Of course, plenty of them reply. The governor said it. I point out that the governor doesn?t make law. He only signs law. The state legislature makes law. The state legislature didn?t. So there is no law. Upon hearing this, many of them remove the absurd garments and admit they thought it was a silly idea to start with. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 01:53:55 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 12:53:55 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 09:59, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > > > >?Suppose there were an epidemic of a more dangerous virus? > > > > How much more dangerous and how much more contagious? > > > > >? and epidemiologists agree? > > > > How many epidemiologists? Qualifications necessary? > > > > >? that lockdowns and other measures to separate people from each other > would help? > > > > How much does it help? Does it help more than it harms? > > > > >? Should we implement those measures or just accept that hundreds of > millions will die? > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > We don?t know that hundreds of millions would die. That?s the problem. > We are asked to do these things but no one really knows how these pandemics > will play out. There have been over 2 million covid deaths. How can we > know something else will cause hundreds of millions? How many died because > of lockdowns? We don?t know. > > > > Stathis this question cannot be simplified. After all this, we still > don?t know the answers to some very fundamental questions. > > > > We can compare states however, such as California and Florida. They both > have a lot of international travel, plenty of domestic travel, similar > climate, similar population demographics, about twice as many people in > California but those two are perhaps our best test case. > > > > California is and has been on lockdowns, schools closed, masks required, > strict protocols. Florida ended all that in September. This is what > happened. California has twice the population and three times the new case > rate: > > > > > > > > How are these two or more epidemiologists going to resurrect enough > credibility when they predict hundreds of millions of deaths? > I don?t want to go into the particulars of the current pandemic. The reason for my question is that I am concerned that you are saying that EVEN IF there is good reason to believe that millions of lives will be saved by compulsory public health measures, these measures should, on principle, not be taken. Is that right, or is there some level of certainty about the efficacy of compulsory public health measures that would lead you to say they should be implemented? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 32545 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 27738 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 02:23:30 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:23:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <000001d6ef8f$d73cdbe0$85b693a0$@rainier66.com> References: <7401B400-467D-4886-9A2D-0A6547A47EBC@me.com> <000001d6ef8f$d73cdbe0$85b693a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Regardless of our genes, we have freedom of culture. I have a hard time imagining anyone would argue with that notion.Are there any limits to that notion? Spike Well, ramp up your imagination: If a family, or group of families, has a culture different from the dominant one where they live, they very likely will get strong pressure to adopt that culture themselves. They are urged to continue to cook that food, go to those churches/synagogues etc., wear those clothes and so on. Many groups in this country do that. Imagine being raised in a Orthodox Jewish family. Sure you have a choice when you grow up (but mostly not until then) but you will cause a storm of criticism if you deviate from that religion and way of practicing it. You could make a similar case for the Chinese, Italians, and many more. Peer pressure, family pressure is strong and the results from your deviations could cause a form of excommunication from that community. Free choices? Nothing like free. bill w On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 6:55 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Omar Rahman via extropy-chat > > > >...Genes and environmental factors, however, do exist, and have actual > explanatory power. > > Omar > > > Ja. Cultures exist too, and they definitely impact collective performance > on IQ tests and every other kind of test. > > Clearly we are free to choose whatever culture we want to be in, at any > time. We can switch from one to another, embrace any culture we want, > reject any culture we want, emulate but not parody or ridicule, all fair > game, ja? Regardless of our genes, we have freedom of culture. I have a > hard time imagining anyone would argue with that notion. > > Are there any limits to that notion? > > 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 Jan 21 02:31:59 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 18:31:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008301d6ef9d$98c1a5e0$ca44f1a0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong >? I am concerned that you are saying that EVEN IF there is good reason to believe that millions of lives will be saved by compulsory public health measures, these measures should, on principle, not be taken. Is that right, or is there some level of certainty about the efficacy of compulsory public health measures that would lead you to say they should be implemented? -- Stathis Papaioannou Stathis, it sounds like what you are really asking is if there is something analogous to the draft, where the government can, under certain circumstances, legally order the citizenry (or some portion of it) to do something. As far as I can tell, there is not. There is no legal way for the government to crisis us into obedience to their arbitrary dictates. I noticed that congress never even attempted to pass a law requiring anything with regard to covid, nor did any of the state legislatures. If some theoretical much worse pandemic came along, could governments then declare something analogous to martial law? Considering what was done this time, I would doubt it. We wouldn?t believe them. We don?t believe them now: governments all over this planet shredded their credibility with their actions. Constitutionally limited governments like the US wouldn?t be able to manufacture political power it does not have. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 04:47:09 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 23:47:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Then they came for the libertarians and I said nothing... Message-ID: . at JohnBrennan : Biden intel community ?are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about? the pro-Trump ?insurgency? that harbors ?religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians? pic.twitter.com/SjVXWhPhR8 ? Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 20, 2021 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 05:25:02 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 16:25:02 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <008301d6ef9d$98c1a5e0$ca44f1a0$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <008301d6ef9d$98c1a5e0$ca44f1a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 13:32, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong > > > > >? I am concerned that you are saying that EVEN IF there is good reason to > believe that millions of lives will be saved by compulsory public health > measures, these measures should, on principle, not be taken. Is that right, > or is there some level of certainty about the efficacy of compulsory public > health measures that would lead you to say they should be implemented? > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > > > > > Stathis, it sounds like what you are really asking is if there is > something analogous to the draft, where the government can, under certain > circumstances, legally order the citizenry (or some portion of it) to do > something. As far as I can tell, there is not. There is no legal way for > the government to crisis us into obedience to their arbitrary dictates. I > noticed that congress never even attempted to pass a law requiring anything > with regard to covid, nor did any of the state legislatures. > > > > If some theoretical much worse pandemic came along, could governments then > declare something analogous to martial law? Considering what was done this > time, I would doubt it. We wouldn?t believe them. We don?t believe them > now: governments all over this planet shredded their credibility with their > actions. > > > > Constitutionally limited governments like the US wouldn?t be able to > manufacture political power it does not have. > I am not asking if the law allows it; laws are made up by people and if enough people want to, they can be changed. So would you support changing laws to allow people to be forced to wear masks and forbid them from congregating in large groups, for example, under any circumstances or do you think such laws would be so terrible that it would be better to allow the death of millions, if it came to that? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 06:04:01 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 01:04:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 3:24 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On 20 Jan 2021, at 16:09, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > > On 20 Jan 2021, at 07:30, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 2:49 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Epidemiology is part of medical science, the methods to contain epidemics > are not invented by politicians. > > - > > > > ### Epidemiologists are against lockdowns but politicians are willing to > pay a lot to some epidemiologists to provide justifications for increasing > their political power, and there are always clowns willing to lie. > > Rafal > > > Do I even need to YODA this? "Epidemiologists are against lockdowns? > > To paraphrase: A quarantine, by any other name, helps keep the airborne > droplets out of your smeller holes. > > > ### At what cost, boy, at what cost? > > > At almost no cost, child, at almost no cost. > ### The lockdowns killed about 50 - 60 thousand people in the US so far but failed to make any measurable difference in Covid mortality. As I said, you need to read up before you talk about stuff. ------------------------------------ > > Maybe that?s your problem Rafal, you are framing things in terms of cost > instead of health outcomes. > > Epidemiologists since forever pointed out that quarantines don't work once > there is widespread community spread of a highly infectious agent. This is > received wisdom, basic epidemiology and yet you behave as if I was saying > something outrageous. > > > You?ve got it backwards, community spread is the signal for further and > stricter quarantine measures, not to despair and start coughing on Grandma. > ### In other words, if you do stupid, and it backfires (60k dead and no reduction in Covid deaths, see paragraph above), just double up on stupid. Read up, again. ------------------------------------------ > > You see, by disrupting the regular action of the community, you disrupt > community spread. > > > I will close with some of your wise word to REFLECT on; ? ...there are > always clowns willing to lie.? > > > ### Your meaning is unclear here. Would you mind explaining it to me? > > It means, look in a goddamned mirror Rafal. > > ### So you say I am... a lying clown? A racist lying clown? Oi, vey. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 06:34:25 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 01:34:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 9:00 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I don?t want to go into the particulars of the current pandemic. The > reason for my question is that I am concerned that you are saying that EVEN > IF there is good reason to believe that millions of lives will be saved by > compulsory public health measures, these measures should, on principle, not > be taken. Is that right, or is there some level of certainty about the > efficacy of compulsory public health measures that would lead you to say > they should be implemented? > ### I don't know what Spike will say but let me interject my opinion: I do not recognize any a priori moral principle that would enjoin a legitimate government from imposing compulsory public health measures. However, it is a trite observation that the government is a very poor way of organizing people, and almost everything that governments currently do can be achieved much better using alternative methods. So, before you ask about the government's right to impose health measures, you should consider the government's ability to achieve superior outcomes through such measures, better outcomes than achievable using non-coercive means. So think about it - suppose a government of honest men, who have not repeatedly betrayed their constituents and have not squandered public trust, tells the nation that going out and meeting people may result in being infected with 90% chance of dying and the only sure way of avoiding that is to avoid contact with others until it all blows over, in weeks or months. Reasonable citizens, truthfully informed by their trustworthy government about the number of cases and the case fatality rate, will make important tradeoffs. Some, with a food stash will stay home. Some, for example those who unfortunately do not have any food left at home, will venture out, knowing the risk. Some idiots will go out and be merry. The contagion will, for obvious reasons, affect the idiots predominantly, and the unfortunates to some extent as well, but it will spare those who quarantine themselves. The outcome of such well-informed and self-controlled quarantine will be efficient- those who must break quarantine will occasionally pay the price but overall they will be doing better, for example by avoiding a lonely death of hunger in their apartments. Idiots will weed themselves out of the population. The well-prepared people will survive just fine. Contrast that with compulsory quarantine imposed by a corrupt, depraved regime, such as the current Chinese government. People who must break quarantine to eat would be shot or would die of hunger. Idiots would live on to do stupid things. The well-prepared would survive just fine. This is a much less efficient outcome. I know that many of us have that authoritarian impulse, to make a law, to make them do what's needed, to smack the idiots down. Aside from certain situations pertaining to group violence, it is a generally counterproductive impulse. Self-regulation, where possible, is almost always superior to top-down control. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 06:37:56 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 01:37:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 10:11 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Rafal- a hunter friend of mine says that the best meat he ever ate was > elk. bill w > ### Venison and wild pig are delicious too, even if a bit leaner than my favorites. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 06:45:17 2021 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 01:45:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] geezer guard In-Reply-To: References: <007201d6e21c$a2f8e2f0$e8eaa8d0$@rainier66.com> <019401d6ef3a$72f2ba60$58d82f20$@rainier66.com> <027901d6ef53$b9c88aa0$2d599fe0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 1:30 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I wish I had the opportunity to eat grassfed beef. Probably available in > big cities. bill w > >> >> > ### It's available online but buyer beware: Raising cows on grass is much more technically difficult than raising them on corn. You have to actively manage pastures, move them from one to another as the grass grows, really pay attention. If you mess up, the meat ends up poor quality, poor flavor. Unhappy cows don't taste good. Putting them in front of a trough filled with corn is a no-brainer for the farmer, which is why corn-fed beef tends to have more uniform quality. I recommend "Steak: One Man's Search for the World's Tastiest Piece of Beef" by Mark Schatzker. Great book, full of interesting tidbits. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 08:54:39 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:54:39 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 17:35, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 9:00 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> I don?t want to go into the particulars of the current pandemic. The >> reason for my question is that I am concerned that you are saying that EVEN >> IF there is good reason to believe that millions of lives will be saved by >> compulsory public health measures, these measures should, on principle, not >> be taken. Is that right, or is there some level of certainty about the >> efficacy of compulsory public health measures that would lead you to say >> they should be implemented? >> > > ### I don't know what Spike will say but let me interject my opinion: > > I do not recognize any a priori moral principle that would enjoin a > legitimate government from imposing compulsory public health measures. > However, it is a trite observation that the government is a very poor way > of organizing people, and almost everything that governments currently do > can be achieved much better using alternative methods. So, before you ask > about the government's right to impose health measures, you should consider > the government's ability to achieve superior outcomes through such > measures, better outcomes than achievable using non-coercive means. > > So think about it - suppose a government of honest men, who have not > repeatedly betrayed their constituents and have not squandered public > trust, tells the nation that going out and meeting people may result in > being infected with 90% chance of dying and the only sure way of avoiding > that is to avoid contact with others until it all blows over, in weeks or > months. Reasonable citizens, truthfully informed by their trustworthy > government about the number of cases and the case fatality rate, will make > important tradeoffs. Some, with a food stash will stay home. Some, for > example those who unfortunately do not have any food left at home, will > venture out, knowing the risk. Some idiots will go out and be merry. The > contagion will, for obvious reasons, affect the idiots predominantly, and > the unfortunates to some extent as well, but it will spare those who > quarantine themselves. The outcome of such well-informed and > self-controlled quarantine will be efficient- those who must break > quarantine will occasionally pay the price but overall they will be doing > better, for example by avoiding a lonely death of hunger in their > apartments. Idiots will weed themselves out of the population. The > well-prepared people will survive just fine. > > Contrast that with compulsory quarantine imposed by a corrupt, depraved > regime, such as the current Chinese government. People who must break > quarantine to eat would be shot or would die of hunger. Idiots would live > on to do stupid things. The well-prepared would survive just fine. This is > a much less efficient outcome. > > I know that many of us have that authoritarian impulse, to make a law, to > make them do what's needed, to smack the idiots down. Aside from certain > situations pertaining to group violence, it is a generally > counterproductive impulse. Self-regulation, where possible, is almost > always superior to top-down control. > Suppose there is a situation where some compulsory measure will, beyond reasonable doubt, mean the difference between returning to normal in a few months or millions dead and the destruction of the economy due to most people cowering in their homes for years, because 10% of the population are stupid, paranoid or don?t care. Should the right of the 10% to destroy themselves and everything else be respected? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Thu Jan 21 11:42:16 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 12:42:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <08ADF40E-8F3F-42AA-8119-9EEE4D437246@me.com> > On 21 Jan 2021, at 02:54, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:09:56 -0500 > From: Dave Sill > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust > Message-ID: > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 7:33 PM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > wrote: > >> >> The myth that ?races? exist is the fundamental myth of racism. > > > Races clearly exist. > No, I stick by what I said. Races do not exist, not in a scientific sense. Reasons: 1) Even if you could you do genetically define a race (some mix of genes in some proportions), it would soon not match the population, even the population of an isolated island group after a few generations. 2) Even if you defined a race with a more flexible statistical model with some trend lines for shifts in the genetic makeup, it would ignore demographic and environmental shifts. Any 16th century notion of ?race?, that those people over there have characteristic X to degree Y, is so useless as to be OFFENSIVELY IGNORANT. When someone with multiple advanced degrees like Dr. Meatstealer Jr., son of Dr. Meatstealer (who, according to Meatstealer Jr, apparently also accepted ?presents? to perform his governmentally paid duties), clings to these ?beliefs? it is WILLFULLY OFFENSIVE IGNORANCE. We?ve seen where this sort of cynical rhetoric leads on Jan. 6. > >> People of ?mixed race? used to be called ?mulatto?, as in ?like mules?, a >> separate sterile species. > > > Yeah, that's bullshit racism. > > But the truth is that we are all some sort of mix. >> > > That's true too. But the fact that racial purity doesn't really exist > doesn't mean that races don't exist. Sorry, that?s exactly what it means. > Genes and environmental factors, however, do exist, and have actual >> explanatory power. >> > > Races are genetic. Environmental factors can alter genetics. > > -Dave Any population group is affected by: genetics, and environmental factors. And environmental factors include (culture, location, changing weather patterns, pollutants, population influxes, and many others.) There is no need, to saddle any discussion with some outdated notion of ?race?. But there is every political motivation for some to ignore all the environmental complexity and simplify things to ?race?. Regards, Omar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 12:53:13 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 07:53:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <002b01d6ef95$8a97fb70$9fc7f250$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <002b01d6ef95$8a97fb70$9fc7f250$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 8:40 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Ja I hear ya Dave, but in this situation there is no side of caution. > There isn?t even a middle of caution. If government under-reacts, it might > contribute to more spread of disease. If government over-reacts, > businesses fail, which causes lives to fail. There is no side of caution > there. > The side of caution is slowing the disease. Businesses failing sucks but the fatalities don't compare with the potential of a pandemic. >?Yea, but after we've digested this a few years, hopefully we'll be better > prepared for the next pandemic. > > > > You are more optimistic on that than I am Dave. Governments want to be > our nannies. They generally did a poor job on covid. Now we don?t trust > them. > Ha, ha! When I say "we", I'm not referring to the government, which never fails to disappoint. I'm hoping that we, the people, will be better prepared by better understanding and being skeptical of the government's actions. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 13:15:55 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 08:15:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: <08ADF40E-8F3F-42AA-8119-9EEE4D437246@me.com> References: <08ADF40E-8F3F-42AA-8119-9EEE4D437246@me.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 6:44 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > No, I stick by what I said. Races do not exist, not in a scientific sense. > > Reasons: > > 1) Even if you could you do genetically define a race (some mix of genes > in some proportions), it would soon not match the population, even the > population of an isolated island group after a few generations. > 2) Even if you defined a race with a more flexible statistical model with > some trend lines for shifts in the genetic makeup, it would ignore > demographic and environmental shifts. > We're not going to agree on this so there's no point in arguing about it. Any 16th century notion of ?race?, that those people over there have > characteristic X to degree Y, is so useless as to be OFFENSIVELY IGNORANT. > Yeah, that's racism, not race. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 21 14:21:50 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 06:21:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Then they came for the libertarians and I said nothing... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007e01d6f000$c3244a50$496cdef0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Then they came for the libertarians and I said nothing... . @JohnBrennan: Biden intel community ?are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about? the pro-Trump ?insurgency? that harbors ?religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians? pic.twitter.com/SjVXWhPhR8 John Brennan, former head of CIA Hi Dylan, The guy you quoted was once trusted with leading the CIA. We just had the former head of the CIA call out and vilify an opposing political party. The CIA hasn?t been blatantly politicized in the past: if they were they didn?t really come out and admit it. The opposite of a libertarian is a totalitarian. Other examples of totalitarianism are Nazis, Fascists, Communists. We had a CIA director who just aligned himself with those outfits. Let?s see if he tries to walk it back or clarify. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 14:30:29 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 09:30:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Then they came for the libertarians and I said nothing... In-Reply-To: <007e01d6f000$c3244a50$496cdef0$@rainier66.com> References: <007e01d6f000$c3244a50$496cdef0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Spike- Based on his prior actions including constantly lying, I would not hold your breath on Brennan walking back anything. The most disgusting part of Brennan for me currently is that he has a huge megaphone via his "press" position. Intelligence agencies have been the biggest risk to freedom in the US for a long time now. It's about to get much, much worse under the guise of a made up war on domestic terror. Glenn Greenwald gets it; few others in the press care to. On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 9:22 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] Then they came for the libertarians and I said nothing... > > > > . at JohnBrennan : > Biden intel community ?are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover > as much as they can about? the pro-Trump ?insurgency? that harbors > ?religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, > nativists, even libertarians? pic.twitter.com/SjVXWhPhR8 > > > John Brennan, former head of CIA > > > > > > Hi Dylan, > > > > The guy you quoted was once trusted with leading the CIA. We just had the > former head of the CIA call out and vilify an opposing political party. > The CIA hasn?t been blatantly politicized in the past: if they were they > didn?t really come out and admit it. > > > > The opposite of a libertarian is a totalitarian. Other examples of > totalitarianism are Nazis, Fascists, Communists. We had a CIA director who > just aligned himself with those outfits. > > > > Let?s see if he tries to walk it back or clarify. > > > > 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 Jan 21 14:33:32 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 06:33:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <008301d6ef9d$98c1a5e0$ca44f1a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008501d6f002$650b2b80$2f218280$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >?I am not asking if the law allows it; laws are made up by people and if enough people want to, they can be changed. So would you support changing laws to allow people to be forced to wear masks and forbid them from congregating in large groups, for example, under any circumstances or do you think such laws would be so terrible that it would be better to allow the death of millions, if it came to that? -- Stathis Papaioannou No way. Such a law is illegal. We would need to throw out the Bill of Rights which defines peaceful assembly as a human right. Even if millions would die without such a law (which we cannot know would happen) throwing out the Bill of Rights would result in the deaths of tens or hundreds of millions. So of course I would not be for such a law, for the sake of saving millions of lives. Stathis you are in favor of saving hundreds of millions of lives, ja? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Thu Jan 21 14:38:44 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:38:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On 21 Jan 2021, at 02:01, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > > Message: 3 > Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 16:53:31 -0800 > From: > > To: "'ExI chat list'" > > Cc: > > Subject: Re: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust > Message-ID: <000001d6ef8f$d73cdbe0$85b693a0$@rainier66.com > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat > On Behalf Of Omar Rahman via extropy-chat > > >> ...Genes and environmental factors, however, do exist, and have actual explanatory power. > > Omar > > > Ja. Cultures exist too, and they definitely impact collective performance on IQ tests and every other kind of test. > > Clearly we are free to choose whatever culture we want to be in, at any time. We can switch from one to another, embrace any culture we want, reject any culture we want, emulate but not parody or ridicule, all fair game, ja? Regardless of our genes, we have freedom of culture. I have a hard time imagining anyone would argue with that notion. > > Are there any limits to that notion? > > spike I agree Spike, genes, along with environmental factors like culture, diet, pollution levels, etc. etc. etc. are what what affect our development. The whole effort to define ?races? is actually an effort to deny environmental factors. Not parody, not ridicule? That?s a tricky question for me actually, depends on power dynamics, threat levels, my intent, their (perceived) intent, and probably more factors?. Mocking red hats who are crying about getting pepper sprayed on Jan 6. when other groups would have been mowed down with machine gun fire? Ya, that?s ok with me. Omar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Thu Jan 21 14:42:28 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:42:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On 21 Jan 2021, at 12:42, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > >> >> >> I will close with some of your wise word to REFLECT on; ? ...there are >> always clowns willing to lie.? >> >> >> ### Your meaning is unclear here. Would you mind explaining it to me? >> >> It means, look in a goddamned mirror Rafal. >> >> > ### So you say I am... a lying clown? A racist lying clown? You also haul ?facts? out of you ass and juggle them! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ExiMod at protonmail.com Thu Jan 21 15:03:36 2021 From: ExiMod at protonmail.com (ExiMod) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:03:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Reminder about List Behavior Message-ID: <67mOITBT8VI9vxHso-D5NeqxroksVHECUwiHdgv7iSgcyUj4ahiwSb4XCS6FMw-qqAKsI1rp6yQQ55J89cKw1X2LXXjs6CF2EOpykDXnSL8=@protonmail.com> The first item on the Exi-Chat Guide is 1) Be polite. We do not allow personal attacks or defamatory statements on Exi-Chat. Vigorous debate must avoid name-calling. Your opponents are not idiots or insane. Our list members come from diverse backgrounds, with different histories and sometimes English is not their first language. Allowance should be made for communication misunderstandings. Swearing is not forbidden, though it may hinder understanding by provoking an emotional backlash. Some members may live among cultures where swearing is prevalent, even daringly fashionable, but it should be minimised in written communication. Regards, ExiMod Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 21 15:19:38 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 07:19:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >?Suppose there is a situation where some compulsory measure will, beyond reasonable doubt, mean the difference between returning to normal in a few months or millions dead ?Stathis Papaioannou Because of what happened this time, we can never get beyond reasonable doubt. We are not beyond reasonable doubt now and are going back the other way. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 15:48:02 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 09:48:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: <08ADF40E-8F3F-42AA-8119-9EEE4D437246@me.com> Message-ID: Here is the biology definition of race (could people fit into it?) [image: image.jpeg] A distinct population that is isolated in a particular area from other populations of a species, and consistently distinguishable from the others, e.g. morphology (or even only genetically). bill w On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 7:17 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 6:44 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> No, I stick by what I said. Races do not exist, not in a scientific sense. >> >> Reasons: >> >> 1) Even if you could you do genetically define a race (some mix of genes >> in some proportions), it would soon not match the population, even the >> population of an isolated island group after a few generations. >> 2) Even if you defined a race with a more flexible statistical model with >> some trend lines for shifts in the genetic makeup, it would ignore >> demographic and environmental shifts. >> > > We're not going to agree on this so there's no point in arguing about it. > > Any 16th century notion of ?race?, that those people over there have >> characteristic X to degree Y, is so useless as to be OFFENSIVELY IGNORANT. >> > > Yeah, that's racism, not race. > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3979 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 16:07:20 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 10:07:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] good signs Message-ID: A Jew elected to the Senate from a Southern state. A Black elected to the Senate from a Southern state. Both from Georgia. It would not happen in my state, Mississippi, but who knows? Maybe soon. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 17:49:54 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 17:49:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 15:21, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Because of what happened this time, we can never get beyond reasonable doubt. We are not beyond reasonable doubt now and are going back the other way. > > spike > _______________________________________________ SFGate has an article - Did shutting down outdoor dining contribute to California's COVID-19 surge? Quote: "I do know that people were far less compliant with this last order," she said. "The state had less of an understanding that people were going to gather, and not because they weren't worried, or because they didn?t believe in COVID, but they believed they had a knowledge base from the media about what keeps us safe. With outdoor dining closed, they said, 'Let?s go inside with masks and distancing.' Of course, not everyone stuck to their masks and distancing plans once they went inside. You obviously have to take your mask off to eat, and the virus spreads much more easily indoors." ----------------- The old 'unintended consequences' again. BillK From interzone at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 20:24:45 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:24:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 9:42 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Mocking red hats who are crying about getting pepper sprayed on Jan 6. > when other groups would have been mowed down with machine gun fire? Ya, > that?s ok with me. > > Funny, I must have missed those other groups getting mowed down with machine gun fire over the summer when they were burning down large swathes of cities, looting, and setting up autonomous zones. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 21 22:59:34 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 14:59:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000d01d6f049$16550dc0$42ff2940$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat ... > _______________________________________________ SFGate has an article - Did shutting down outdoor dining contribute to California's COVID-19 surge? Quote: >..."I do know that people were far less compliant with this last order," she said. "The state had less of an understanding that people were going to gather, and not because they weren't worried, or because they didn?t believe in COVID, but they believed they had a knowledge base from the media about what keeps us safe. With outdoor dining closed, they said, 'Let?s go inside with masks and distancing.' Of course, not everyone stuck to their masks and distancing plans once they went inside. You obviously have to take your mask off to eat, and the virus spreads much more easily indoors." ----------------- >...The old 'unintended consequences' again. BillK _______________________________________________ With masks in particular, data accumulates showing they don't really do much, if anything. We are seeing plenty of evidence in Florida, comparing counties which require masks with those which do not. It isn't at all clear they help slow infection rates. Given that governments insisted on the mask mandates, then we find out they don't really help, there is little incentive to believe them if they tell us do exactly as they demand or hundreds of millions will die. We call bullshit on their silly claims. We refuse their request for unconstitutional power on disease control. They were a collective flop in this go-around. The science might be wrong. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 23:08:50 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:08:50 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <008501d6f002$650b2b80$2f218280$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <008301d6ef9d$98c1a5e0$ca44f1a0$@rainier66.com> <008501d6f002$650b2b80$2f218280$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 01:37, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > >?I am not asking if the law allows it; laws are made up by people and if > enough people want to, they can be changed. So would you support changing > laws to allow people to be forced to wear masks and forbid them from > congregating in large groups, for example, under any circumstances or do > you think such laws would be so terrible that it would be better to allow > the death of millions, if it came to that? > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > > > > > No way. Such a law is illegal. We would need to throw out the Bill of > Rights which defines peaceful assembly as a human right. Even if millions > would die without such a law (which we cannot know would happen) throwing > out the Bill of Rights would result in the deaths of tens or hundreds of > millions. So of course I would not be for such a law, for the sake of > saving millions of lives. Stathis you are in favor of saving hundreds of > millions of lives, ja? > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > OK, you have made your position clear. You think compulsory public health measures would be so bad that it is better to let people die. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 23:10:48 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:10:48 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 02:20, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > > > >?Suppose there is a situation where some compulsory measure will, beyond > reasonable doubt, mean the difference between returning to normal in a few > months or millions dead ?Stathis Papaioannou > > > > Because of what happened this time, we can never get beyond reasonable > doubt. We are not beyond reasonable doubt now and are going back the other > way. > I'm talking about a situation where you, yourself, agree that these measures would save many lives. It seems that even in that case, you think it would be better to let people die. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 21 23:53:47 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:53:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <008301d6ef9d$98c1a5e0$ca44f1a0$@rainier66.com> <008501d6f002$650b2b80$2f218280$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002601d6f050$a9c72960$fd557c20$@rainier66.com> >? On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >?OK, you have made your position clear. You think compulsory public health measures would be so bad that it is better to let people die. -- Stathis Papaioannou No. Compulsory health measures would be perfectly OK if we know that people will die without them. We don?t know that. Compulsory health measures might demand stuff that kills people. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 21 23:59:38 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 17:59:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <002601d6f050$a9c72960$fd557c20$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <008301d6ef9d$98c1a5e0$ca44f1a0$@rainier66.com> <008501d6f002$650b2b80$2f218280$@rainier66.com> <002601d6f050$a9c72960$fd557c20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Maybe these little thin masks just don't do the job. My wife read that if you double them you do get some protection. And why were N 95 masks touted if there wasn't any data showing their protective ability? And what about the Kansas data I cited earlier? Massive differences between counties that did or did not agree to a mask directive? Biggest question: why isn't there hard scientific data on this question? Claims by chat members are one thing, and hard data is another. bill w On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 5:55 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *>?* *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > > >?OK, you have made your position clear. You think compulsory public > health measures would be so bad that it is better to let people die. > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > No. Compulsory health measures would be perfectly OK if we know that > people will die without them. We don?t know that. Compulsory health > measures might demand stuff that kills people. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 22 00:12:25 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 16:12:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat Because of what happened this time, we can never get beyond reasonable doubt. We are not beyond reasonable doubt now and are going back the other way. >?I'm talking about a situation where you, yourself, agree that these measures would save many lives. It seems that even in that case, you think it would be better to let people die. -- Stathis Papaioannou No. Stathis if I myself agree these measures would save many lives, I might be wrong. It seemed like masks should help: they apparently didn?t. Shutdowns should have helped, but we have little indication they worked. Even if I myself agree measures would work, we still don?t know that they will. Praying the Ava Maria and wearing rosary beads might cause god to spare us, and plenty of people would urge that course, but that might not help either. This is a photo, taken today, of POTUS explaining to a group of mask-wearing journalists he has signed a mandate that masks are required on Federal property. The photo was taken in front of the Lincoln Memorial: Somehow these guys still don?t understand why we don?t give them more authority. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 17792 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 4217 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 22 00:31:20 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 16:31:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005201d6f055$e86b97a0$b942c6e0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com ? >?No. Stathis if I myself agree these measures would save many lives, I might be wrong? Here?s what we have in California: https://rationalground.com/post-thanksgiving-mask-charts-still-no-evidence-that-masks-work/ I see little indication these worked at all. It seemed like masks should help: they apparently didn?t. Shutdowns should have helped, but we have little indication they worked. Even if I myself agree measures would work, we still don?t know that they will. Praying the Ava Maria and wearing rosary beads might cause god to spare us, and plenty of people would urge that course, but that might not help either. This is a photo, taken today, of POTUS explaining to a group of mask-wearing journalists he has signed a mandate that masks are required on Federal property. The photo was taken in front of the Lincoln Memorial: Somehow these guys still don?t understand why we don?t give them more authority. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 17792 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 4217 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 55016 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 00:49:15 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 18:49:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <005201d6f055$e86b97a0$b942c6e0$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <005201d6f055$e86b97a0$b942c6e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Maybe the mask-wearing did not change that much after the mandate, eh? I don't consider that good data. bill w On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 6:33 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > *?* > > > > >?No. Stathis if I myself agree these measures would save many lives, I > might be wrong? > > > > Here?s what we have in California: > > > > > > > > > > > https://rationalground.com/post-thanksgiving-mask-charts-still-no-evidence-that-masks-work/ > > > > I see little indication these worked at all. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > It seemed like masks should help: they apparently didn?t. Shutdowns > should have helped, but we have little indication they worked. Even if I > myself agree measures would work, we still don?t know that they will. > Praying the Ava Maria and wearing rosary beads might cause god to spare us, > and plenty of people would urge that course, but that might not help either. > > > > > > This is a photo, taken today, of POTUS explaining to a group of > mask-wearing journalists he has signed a mandate that masks are required on > Federal property. The photo was taken in front of the Lincoln Memorial: > > > > > > Somehow these guys still don?t understand why we don?t give them more > authority. > > > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 17792 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 4217 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 55016 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 22 01:15:51 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 17:15:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <005201d6f055$e86b97a0$b942c6e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006e01d6f05c$20871730$61954590$@rainier66.com> >? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong >?Maybe the mask-wearing did not change that much after the mandate, eh? I don't consider that good data. Billw How about this: spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 107344 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 22 01:27:58 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 17:27:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <006e01d6f05c$20871730$61954590$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <005201d6f055$e86b97a0$b942c6e0$@rainier66.com> <006e01d6f05c$20871730$61954590$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000d01d6f05d$d1c12850$754378f0$@rainier66.com> >?And what about the Kansas data I cited earlier? BillW The CDC should look into that again. They reported 100% increase in case rate in non-mask Kansas counties based on a daily infection rate that went from 6 to 12 in the study period. That study was published before the real action happened however: The CDC hasn?t said much about Kansas recently. I don?t know what the story is there now. spike From: spike at rainier66.com Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2021 5:16 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] the science might be wrong >? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong >?Maybe the mask-wearing did not change that much after the mandate, eh? I don't consider that good data. Billw How about this: spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 31225 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 107344 bytes Desc: not available URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 04:14:36 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 15:14:36 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 11:13, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > Because of what happened this time, we can never get beyond reasonable > doubt. We are not beyond reasonable doubt now and are going back the other > way. > > > > >?I'm talking about a situation where you, yourself, agree that these > measures would save many lives. It seems that even in that case, you think > it would be better to let people die. > > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > No. Stathis if I myself agree these measures would save many lives, I > might be wrong. It seemed like masks should help: they apparently didn?t. > Shutdowns should have helped, but we have little indication they worked. > Even if I myself agree measures would work, we still don?t know that they > will. Praying the Ava Maria and wearing rosary beads might cause god to > spare us, and plenty of people would urge that course, but that might not > help either. > > > > > > This is a photo, taken today, of POTUS explaining to a group of > mask-wearing journalists he has signed a mandate that masks are required on > Federal property. The photo was taken in front of the Lincoln Memorial: > > > > > > Somehow these guys still don?t understand why we don?t give them more > authority. > I know you disagree that masks help, buty the question was not about that, it was about whether you think that public health measures should ever be made mandatory. I thought you were saying that no, even in the event that it would save lives, it would be better to let people die than force them to wear masks. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 17792 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 4217 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 22 04:59:24 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 20:59:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat Somehow these guys still don?t understand why we don?t give them more authority. >?I know you disagree that masks help, buty the question was not about that, it was about whether you think that public health measures should ever be made mandatory. I thought you were saying that no, even in the event that it would save lives, it would be better to let people die than force them to wear masks. -- Stathis Papaioannou OK no worries, I see where the discussion diverged. The government cannot force people to wear anything. The Nazis already ended that for all time with the star of David. The Fed can require people to wear mask indoors: I figure whoever owns the building makes the rules, and the Fed can pressure businesses into making that one. OK. There is now a Federal mandate to wear masks on Federal property, but there is no actual penalty for not doing so. Reason: they already caught a guy not wearing one after he had signed the mandate. Nothing happened. Same with the California governor: signed the mandate, then demonstrated there is no penalty for ignoring it. So no, the government cannot force anyone to wear a mask. A business owner can for people who come into her building. Public health measures in general, such as quarantines: those may or may not be enforceable, probably not. We live in times when we are finding we cannot enforce immigration law, anti-rioting law, a lot of basic law. Tricky stuff like quarantines: forget it. California mandated business closures for non-essential businesses, but didn?t actually do anything about it if they declared themselves essential and stayed open. If the Fed now says do this and that or millions of people will die, we now will not believe them. Its collective credibility went up in smoke with the covid response and will not be easily restored in our time. A few states appear to have done the right thing: Florida for instance. Florida opted for light-handed leadership, which turned out to be superior to California?s heavy-handed approach. Perhaps we will make Gov. DeSantis our next POTUS. Stathis, pandemics cannot be used to leverage governments into more power. Covid is a crisis that will just go to waste. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 05:47:53 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 16:47:53 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 16:00, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > Somehow these guys still don?t understand why we don?t give them more > authority. > > > > >?I know you disagree that masks help, buty the question was not about > that, it was about whether you think that public health measures should > ever be made mandatory. I thought you were saying that no, even in the > event that it would save lives, it would be better to let people die than > force them to wear masks. > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > OK no worries, I see where the discussion diverged. The government cannot > force people to wear anything. The Nazis already ended that for all time > with the star of David. The Fed can require people to wear mask indoors: I > figure whoever owns the building makes the rules, and the Fed can pressure > businesses into making that one. OK. > > > > There is now a Federal mandate to wear masks on Federal property, but > there is no actual penalty for not doing so. Reason: they already caught a > guy not wearing one after he had signed the mandate. Nothing happened. > Same with the California governor: signed the mandate, then demonstrated > there is no penalty for ignoring it. So no, the government cannot force > anyone to wear a mask. A business owner can for people who come into her > building. > > > > Public health measures in general, such as quarantines: those may or may > not be enforceable, probably not. We live in times when we are finding we > cannot enforce immigration law, anti-rioting law, a lot of basic law. > Tricky stuff like quarantines: forget it. California mandated business > closures for non-essential businesses, but didn?t actually do anything > about it if they declared themselves essential and stayed open. > > > > If the Fed now says do this and that or millions of people will die, we > now will not believe them. Its collective credibility went up in smoke > with the covid response and will not be easily restored in our time. A few > states appear to have done the right thing: Florida for instance. Florida > opted for light-handed leadership, which turned out to be superior to > California?s heavy-handed approach. Perhaps we will make Gov. DeSantis our > next POTUS. > > > > Stathis, pandemics cannot be used to leverage governments into more > power. Covid is a crisis that will just go to waste. > OK, so as I suspected, even if you agreed that mandating the wearing of masks would save lives, and that it could be adequately enforced, you would still not support it. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Fri Jan 22 08:01:21 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 09:01:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Section 230 and Antitrust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:24:45 -0500 > From: Dylan Distasio > > > On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 9:42 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > wrote: > >> >> Mocking red hats who are crying about getting pepper sprayed on Jan 6. >> when other groups would have been mowed down with machine gun fire? Ya, >> that?s ok with me. >> >> > Funny, I must have missed those other groups getting mowed down with > machine gun fire over the summer when they were > burning down large swathes of cities, Funny, how there were literally thousands of peaceful demonstrations by day, but by night sometimes things went bad. Funny, how is seems like almost two different groups. Funny, I know a phrase for that ?agent provocateur?. > looting, Funny, how that ranks up against a coup?.meaning it is insignificant. > and setting up autonomous zones. Where they gave out cookies, and is was safe for children to play. Funny, how a teenager can cross state lines, murder someone, and murder more during his escape, be permitted back through police lines, return to his mommy, and then even when he is so obviously guilty, get millions of dollars for his legal defense, and be hailed as a hero by some. Funny, there were plenty of casualties, and thousands of arrests, and people being disappeared into unmarked cars by unmarked ?officers?. How the fuck did you miss all that? Funny, that you think they would haven?t been met by overwhelming lethal force if they had tried something like the Jan.6 insurrection. Hunny. Ha. Ha. Omar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Fri Jan 22 08:39:51 2021 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 09:39:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Help, help, I'm being oppressed! *cry* Was: Reminder about List Behavior In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39F4ECDC-2830-4E97-922E-1A317E3DAE6F@me.com> > On 21 Jan 2021, at 16:48, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > Message: 8 > Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:03:36 +0000 > From: ExiMod > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: [ExI] Reminder about List Behavior > Message-ID: > <67mOITBT8VI9vxHso-D5NeqxroksVHECUwiHdgv7iSgcyUj4ahiwSb4XCS6FMw-qqAKsI1rp6yQQ55J89cKw1X2LXXjs6CF2EOpykDXnSL8=@protonmail.com > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > The first item on the Exi-Chat Guide is > 1) Be polite. We do not allow personal attacks or defamatory statements on Exi-Chat. However, if someone describes a family tradition of protein hijacking, it is perfectly acceptable to refer to them as protein hijackers in the future in a completely non-defamatory way. > Vigorous debate must avoid name-calling. Can you imply things and let the dumb asses pick up the label and attach it to themselves? > Your opponents are not idiots or insane. RANDyness, however, is basically codified sociopathy, so, if you want to avoid diagnosis as a sociopath, just start talking about how bad altruism is. > Our list members come from diverse backgrounds, with different histories and sometimes English is not their first language. Allowance should be made for communication misunderstandings. Agree, Yoda does! Sorry Yoda is a snowflake melt he did! > Swearing is not forbidden, Thank fuck for that! > though it may hinder understanding by provoking an emotional backlash. Sometimes, emotional backlash (assuming the subject is capable of feeling normal human emotion) is what initiates understanding. One could make an argument that the lack of emotions in an AI inhibits them from true understanding. > Some members may live among cultures where swearing is prevalent, even daringly fashionable, but it should be minimised in written communication. Sometimes, just sometimes, swearing and mockery is performance art and done completely intentionally. > Regards, ExiMod Regards, Omar > Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com ) Secure Email. > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 22 14:39:56 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 06:39:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >?OK, so as I suspected, even if you agreed that mandating the wearing of masks would save lives, and that it could be adequately enforced, you would still not support it. -- Stathis Papaioannou I wouldn?t. I would agree with wearing one myself however, and would. Consider the MINO: mask in name only. They are made of spandex. Very comfortable, one scarcely knows one is wearing it. Doesn?t get wet inside. Doesn?t trap anything. Clearly states it is not for medical purposes, it is only for fashion purposes. Well, that is still a mask. Government cannot force this upon us. We don?t want a government with the power to dictate that kind of thing, particularly since it has demonstrated it doesn?t know how to handle pandemics. Some governments did better than others, but the better ones did less. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 14:41:14 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 08:41:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Help, help, I'm being oppressed! *cry* Was: Reminder about List Behavior In-Reply-To: <39F4ECDC-2830-4E97-922E-1A317E3DAE6F@me.com> References: <39F4ECDC-2830-4E97-922E-1A317E3DAE6F@me.com> Message-ID: This is the chat list. The moderator rules. The extropy list has no moderator and you can say anything you want to. Just be aware of what list you are replying to. bill w On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 2:41 AM Omar Rahman via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > On 21 Jan 2021, at 16:48, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > Message: 8 > Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:03:36 +0000 > From: ExiMod > To: ExI chat list > Subject: [ExI] Reminder about List Behavior > Message-ID: > < > 67mOITBT8VI9vxHso-D5NeqxroksVHECUwiHdgv7iSgcyUj4ahiwSb4XCS6FMw-qqAKsI1rp6yQQ55J89cKw1X2LXXjs6CF2EOpykDXnSL8=@protonmail.com > > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > The first item on the Exi-Chat Guide is > 1) Be polite. We do not allow personal attacks or defamatory statements on > Exi-Chat. > > > However, if someone describes a family tradition of protein hijacking, it > is perfectly acceptable to refer to them as protein hijackers in the future > in a completely non-defamatory way. > > Vigorous debate must avoid name-calling. > > > Can you imply things and let the dumb asses pick up the label and attach > it to themselves? > > Your opponents are not idiots or insane. > > > RANDyness, however, is basically codified sociopathy, so, if you want to > avoid diagnosis as a sociopath, just start talking about how bad altruism > is. > > Our list members come from diverse backgrounds, with different histories > and sometimes English is not their first language. Allowance should be made > for communication misunderstandings. > > > Agree, Yoda does! Sorry Yoda is a snowflake melt he did! > > Swearing is not forbidden, > > > Thank fuck for that! > > though it may hinder understanding by provoking an emotional backlash. > > > Sometimes, emotional backlash (assuming the subject is capable of feeling > normal human emotion) is what initiates understanding. One could make an > argument that the lack of emotions in an AI inhibits them from true > understanding. > > Some members may live among cultures where swearing is prevalent, even > daringly fashionable, but it should be minimised in written communication. > > > Sometimes, just sometimes, swearing and mockery is performance art and > done completely intentionally. > > Regards, ExiMod > > > Regards, > > Omar > > Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email. > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20210121/34a2255f/attachment-0001.htm > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 22 15:44:17 2021 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:44:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] This is my last post to the Extropian List Message-ID: Assuming this makes it through the moderation and approval process that I must undergo this will be my last post to the Extropian List, my first was on September 29 1993. I will unsubscribe after this, it will be the first time in 28 years I have not been a member. It pains me to do this but even though He Who Must Not Be Named is no longer president I'm still under moderation and there is just no point in cluttering up my mailbox with posts that I can't respond to without a lot of red tape, besides the list has change so much in the last 4 years from being a bunch of logic loving free market libertarians (small l) that it once was I hardly recognize it anymore. Thanks everybody for decades of great discussions. Goodbye. John K Clark PS: Even though I won't be making my "Paranormal Prediction" post at the end of this year as I have in the past I still think it will hold true. PPS: You can still find me hanging around Extropolis and The Everything List -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jan 22 18:24:20 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 18:24:20 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> On 22/01/2021 00:31, Spike wrote: > With masks in particular, data accumulates showing they don't really do much, if anything. We are seeing plenty of evidence in Florida, comparing counties which require masks with those which do not. It isn't at all clear they help slow infection rates. Well, there's masks and there's masks. The word includes everything from a closely-fitted medical mask with a filter that is probably pretty effective, to a flimsy piece of cloth or paper with no seal at all with the wearer's skin, which is completely ineffective. Not to mention that if people have to be told to wear their masks around their noses as well as their mouths, or "Don't wear your mask on your chin", you can be pretty sure that a lot of them might as well not be wearing any mask at all. I've stopped noticing the people wearing masks with big gaps between their cheeks and the mask, but I'd say that probably most people who wear them might as well not be. Just as with statistics about deaths, statistics about masks are pretty useless. At least as useless as the masks themselves, probably more. -- Ben Zaiboc From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 18:27:13 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 12:27:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html So then, tell me what's wrong with these data? bill w On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 12:26 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 22/01/2021 00:31, Spike wrote: > > With masks in particular, data accumulates showing they don't really do > much, if anything. We are seeing plenty of evidence in Florida, comparing > counties which require masks with those which do not. It isn't at all > clear they help slow infection rates. > > Well, there's masks and there's masks. The word includes everything from > a closely-fitted medical mask with a filter that is probably pretty > effective, to a flimsy piece of cloth or paper with no seal at all with > the wearer's skin, which is completely ineffective. Not to mention that > if people have to be told to wear their masks around their noses as well > as their mouths, or "Don't wear your mask on your chin", you can be > pretty sure that a lot of them might as well not be wearing any mask at > all. I've stopped noticing the people wearing masks with big gaps > between their cheeks and the mask, but I'd say that probably most people > who wear them might as well not be. > > Just as with statistics about deaths, statistics about masks are pretty > useless. At least as useless as the masks themselves, probably more. > > -- > 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 interzone at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 18:42:06 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 13:42:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: California stands in stark contrast to that data you linked unless you believe noone is wearing masks there. As Ben pointed out, a properly fitted REAL N95 new single use mask probably provides a significant amount of protection in terms of reducing both intake of viral load and viral load escaping via cough or sneeze. Based on the data I've seen, and common sense, cloth (and surgical masks) are probably worthless (and possibly in some cases with repeat wearing even worse than no mask). There's also the point raised about your average person not using one properly even if they had a N95. They're not going to seal it properly (they're very uncomfortable, especially in heat); they're going to touch the outside of the mask, and then touch other stuff including rubbing their eyes, etc. Maintaining sterile technique can be taught, but is not easy to maintain. I used to do cell culture where it's critical, but good luck getting a large group of people doing it consistently. The mandate of cloth and surgical masks is nothing more than virtue signalling and a control structure and there is no convincing data that real world use is having any impact on spread. It would be funny if the larger implications were not so disturbing. On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 1:31 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html > > So then, tell me what's wrong with these data? bill w > > On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 12:26 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On 22/01/2021 00:31, Spike wrote: >> > With masks in particular, data accumulates showing they don't really do >> much, if anything. We are seeing plenty of evidence in Florida, comparing >> counties which require masks with those which do not. It isn't at all >> clear they help slow infection rates. >> >> Well, there's masks and there's masks. The word includes everything from >> a closely-fitted medical mask with a filter that is probably pretty >> effective, to a flimsy piece of cloth or paper with no seal at all with >> the wearer's skin, which is completely ineffective. Not to mention that >> if people have to be told to wear their masks around their noses as well >> as their mouths, or "Don't wear your mask on your chin", you can be >> pretty sure that a lot of them might as well not be wearing any mask at >> all. I've stopped noticing the people wearing masks with big gaps >> between their cheeks and the mask, but I'd say that probably most people >> who wear them might as well not be. >> >> Just as with statistics about deaths, statistics about masks are pretty >> useless. At least as useless as the masks themselves, probably more. >> >> -- >> Ben Zaiboc >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Jan 22 18:50:11 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:50:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <011701d6f0ef$6a5f5190$3f1df4b0$@rainier66.com> >..> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong On 22/01/2021 00:31, Spike wrote: > With masks in particular, data accumulates showing they don't really do much, if anything. We are seeing plenty of evidence in Florida, comparing counties which require masks with those which do not. It isn't at all clear they help slow infection rates. >...Well, there's masks and there's masks. The word includes everything from a closely-fitted medical mask with a filter that is probably pretty effective, to a flimsy piece of cloth or paper with no seal at all ... >...Just as with statistics about deaths, statistics about masks are pretty useless. At least as useless as the masks themselves, probably more. -- Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ Hi Ben, ja to all. I can imagine types of masks which would work and have used them for dusty work (cutting bricks.) I see no one with those kinds of masks. I see plenty of the pretend ones, the spandex fashionable ones, and the paper "surgical" masks which surgeons do not use for instance, never mind the way they are often used, as a chin-bra. I was only half in jest earlier when I comment that I refuse to wear a mask for safety reasons. Refusing a mask is a great people repellant, better than Larry David's MAGA hat. When maskless, the other proles give you more space. When outdoors, my logic tells me my risk drops by the square of the distance. Masks may give the other proles a false sense of security, encouraging them to stand closer to each other, in the false belief that it is safe. It isn't safe. Not yet anyway: there are not enough vaccinated people. Viruses and smaller moisture particles can pass thru spandex and paper like a horsefly thru a border fence. None of this claims that masks cannot be made effective. I have no doubt that the ones Adrian is making are effective (because I know how he does things: right.) But as earthlings are using masks, I suspect they are collectively ineffective, and might be causing more harm than good because of the false security factor. spike From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 18:58:19 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:58:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <011701d6f0ef$6a5f5190$3f1df4b0$@rainier66.com> References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> <011701d6f0ef$6a5f5190$3f1df4b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 10:51 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hi Ben, ja to all. I can imagine types of masks which would work and have > used them for dusty work (cutting bricks.) I see no one with those kinds > of > masks. You haven't seen me around lately. ;) > I was only half in jest earlier when I comment that I refuse to wear a mask > for safety reasons. Refusing a mask is a great people repellant, better > than Larry David's MAGA hat. When maskless, the other proles give you more > space. If only that was true. None of this claims that masks cannot be made effective. I have no doubt > that the ones Adrian is making are effective (because I know how he does > things: right.) Anyone on this list who wants good masks, I've got what might be the final batch for use in the US lying around. (Foreign countries might take longer to resolve, but at this point it looks like all the mass mask customers in the US have supply for the expected remainder of the pandemic.) Send me an email off-list if interested. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 18:58:16 2021 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 13:58:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 1:26 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 22/01/2021 00:31, Spike wrote: > > With masks in particular, data accumulates showing they don't really do > much, if anything. > Someone should tell the medical establishment that: they could save a fortune on surgical masks. (Yeah, I get that they're designed for the purpose and that compliance is near 100%. We could have designed pandemic masks, too.) And even if masks don't work well, the burden of wearing one is small enough that I really don't understand why people are rabidly opposed to them. Just as with statistics about deaths, statistics about masks are pretty > useless. At least as useless as the masks themselves, probably more. > Yeah. Assuming that mask wearing is statistically better where there are mandates is probably iffy. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 18:58:38 2021 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 13:58:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <011701d6f0ef$6a5f5190$3f1df4b0$@rainier66.com> References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> <011701d6f0ef$6a5f5190$3f1df4b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 1:50 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > When outdoors, my logic tells me my risk drops by the square of the > distance. > Luckily, my state doesn't mandate them for outdoors. I've never been arrested in my life, but I draw the line at entertaining this nonsense outdoors. You won't ever see me maintaining the facade outside. It's a bridge too far. The only reasons I wear one into stores is to honor the wishes of the proprietor and avoid verbal/physical confrontations. I guess I'm lucky that I no longer commute to NYC as apparently their entire population in Manhattan has quickly rolled over, and there are near 100% mask rates on the streets (anecdotal reports from friends) at this point. If I had to go back, I would stick to my guns and not wear one outside there either, but I also expect I would be physically attacked in short order with the state of lawlessness overtaking the once great Gotham. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 19:08:38 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 11:08:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 11:05 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > We could have designed pandemic masks, too. > *raises hand* Could have? Did. >_> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 22 19:20:28 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 11:20:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <014201d6f0f3$a58a6d00$f09f4700$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Dave Sill via extropy-chat ? >?Yeah. Assuming that mask wearing is statistically better where there are mandates is probably iffy. -Dave As they are being used, mask mandates are not law and do not specify what constitutes a mask. It doesn?t qualify as a dress code to say: You must wear clothing. No state legislatures (as far as I know) lifted a finger to even try to pass a law on maks. Do let me be very clear: I am a strong believer in social distancing. That works. It works even better for me: I not a people person. I am a machine person. I am not always completely sure of the person part. I am a machine life form. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 19:28:43 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 13:28:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <014201d6f0f3$a58a6d00$f09f4700$@rainier66.com> References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> <014201d6f0f3$a58a6d00$f09f4700$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I am a machine life form- spike - and a rare one too - Made In America bill w On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 1:22 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Dave Sill via extropy-chat > *?* > > > > >?Yeah. Assuming that mask wearing is statistically better where there are > mandates is probably iffy. -Dave > > > > > > As they are being used, mask mandates are not law and do not specify what > constitutes a mask. It doesn?t qualify as a dress code to say: You must > wear clothing. No state legislatures (as far as I know) lifted a finger to > even try to pass a law on maks. > > > > Do let me be very clear: I am a strong believer in social distancing. > That works. It works even better for me: I not a people person. I am a > machine person. I am not always completely sure of the person part. I am > a machine life form. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 22 20:20:45 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 12:20:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <9d95d8aa-ef22-35d4-9fd2-5fd74bbc1801@zaiboc.net> <014201d6f0f3$a58a6d00$f09f4700$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <01a101d6f0fc$11204280$3360c780$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong >>? I am a machine life form- spike >?- and a rare one too - Made In America bill w Ah yes, a kindhearted comment by a fellow driver of American made cars. We both think highly of our American-made products. But there is more. I still think I might have caught an early case of covid. I have not been tested for antibodies and refuse to go to the hospital to find out: too dangerous. So I will assign it about a 30% possibility, but whatever was that condition which kept me sick for nearly two months was unlike anything I have ever had before. There were long term effects such as change of personality. I used to be such a turd bird. It is the opposite of what happened to Alice Cooper: now it?s more Mister Nice Guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN6ngThqMEs I open doors for little old ladies, unlike Cooper who started out doing that and stopped when he suffered abuse which caused him cynicism, as described in the song. With me, it?s more Mister Clean, my dog stopped biting me, the cat stopped clawing my eyes, the works. I fear it is a lasting impact of that virus: a personality change caused all this. I will grant that the little old ladies I help don?t look nearly as old to me as they once did. But I digress. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sat Jan 23 00:57:48 2021 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 19:57:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <01a101d6f0fc$11204280$3360c780$@rainier66.com> References: <01a101d6f0fc$11204280$3360c780$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <29216019-8C0C-4F98-AE28-4305DD2DA3EF@alumni.virginia.edu> I?m with Dave Sill on this one. Burden is minuscule, potential benefits huge. I don?t think it?s all or nothing with mask effectiveness. It?s a matter of degree. A mask that has some gap may not be as effective as a sealed, fitted N95, but it?s better than nothing?depending on other factors like proximity, ventilation/air exchange. Here?s a new study https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/90765 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(20)30293-4/fulltext And a Commentary from The Lancet Face masks help control transmission of COVID-19 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(21)00003-0/fulltext Six studies are referenced. More support: https://hms.harvard.edu/news/mask-slow-down-sars-cov-2-0 Has anyone seen these and their variants? I think they have some face validity (no pun intended), dare I say show common sense? Again, I?m thinking probabilities here. Would you take your chances in a small room for 15 mins with someone who was covid + if you and them were unmasked if you had the option of one or both of you in a mask? Masks may not be that great, but I?d take the option of one or both of us in a mask because I know a physical barrier intercepting droplets has to stop some of the potential contaminants even if some get around it. But that could still equate to reduced risk of infection relative to if there was no barrier. That plus good physical distance could make the difference between getting infected and not. Maybe using covid in that example is inadequate. Too many people are not really scared of covid. What if it was smallpox which has a 30% fatality rate? Would you go unmasked saying your odds of were the same as if you were both masked since masks are useless? I read that Singapore as a society learned from SARS and H1N1 to mask early in the covid-19 spread and was spared significantly. They also has adequate supplies on hand: On January 20, Taiwan?s equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it had ?44 million surgical masks, 1.9 million N95 masks, and 1,100 negative pressure isolation rooms? ready to go, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Masks became National mandate there on April 14 ?when stepping out of the house with some exceptions.? They delivered masks to all their citizens prior to the announcement. Singapore doesn?t mess around when it comes to enforcement of laws: ?Individuals who are caught refusing to wear a mask will be fined S$300 on their first offence, while those who flout the rule a second time will be fined S$1,000. Egregious cases will be prosecuted in court... Foreign residents caught breaching these rules might have their work passes or permanent resident status revoked.? They also locked down much of society and promoted distancing, with enforcement: ?According to the Ministry of Health, nearly 3,000 enforcement officers and ambassadors from more than 30 agencies have been deployed daily to public spaces in HDB estates across the island, to ensure that safe distancing measures are kept to. They contained it pretty well going by this Not perfect but enviable compared to the US. How much of that can be attributed to masks? I don?t know of course. But the cost of not masking is high if masks can make a difference, so why chance it. -Henry > On Jan 22, 2021, at 3:21 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > ? > > > ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong > > >>? I am a machine life form- spike > >?- and a rare one too - Made In America bill w > Ah yes, a kindhearted comment by a fellow driver of American made cars. We both think highly of our American-made products. > But there is more. I still think I might have caught an early case of covid. I have not been tested for antibodies and refuse to go to the hospital to find out: too dangerous. So I will assign it about a 30% possibility, but whatever was that condition which kept me sick for nearly two months was unlike anything I have ever had before. > There were long term effects such as change of personality. I used to be such a turd bird. It is the opposite of what happened to Alice Cooper: now it?s more Mister Nice Guy. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN6ngThqMEs > I open doors for little old ladies, unlike Cooper who started out doing that and stopped when he suffered abuse which caused him cynicism, as described in the song. With me, it?s more Mister Clean, my dog stopped biting me, the cat stopped clawing my eyes, the works. I fear it is a lasting impact of that virus: a personality change caused all this. > I will grant that the little old ladies I help don?t look nearly as old to me as they once did. But I digress. > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image1.png Type: image/png Size: 241878 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image2.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 56723 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image0.png Type: image/png Size: 154652 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 01:27:17 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 19:27:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <29216019-8C0C-4F98-AE28-4305DD2DA3EF@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <01a101d6f0fc$11204280$3360c780$@rainier66.com> <29216019-8C0C-4F98-AE28-4305DD2DA3EF@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: With my age and weak heart I don't really have a choice. I'll wear Adrian's mask anywhere in public. The pros and cons are enormously different. bill w (wow, Henry, your post ran way way off the side of my page) On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 7:16 PM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I?m with Dave Sill on this one. Burden is minuscule, potential benefits > huge. I don?t think it?s all or nothing with mask effectiveness. It?s a > matter of degree. A mask that has some gap may not be as effective as a > sealed, fitted N95, but it?s better than nothing?depending on other factors > like proximity, ventilation/air exchange. > > Here?s a new study > https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/90765 > > > > https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(20)30293-4/fulltext > > And a Commentary from The Lancet > Face masks help control transmission of COVID-19 > > https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(21)00003-0/fulltext > > Six studies are referenced. > > More support: > https://hms.harvard.edu/news/mask-slow-down-sars-cov-2-0 > > Has anyone seen these and their variants? > > > > > I think they have some face validity (no pun intended), dare I say show > common sense? Again, I?m thinking probabilities here. Would you take your > chances in a small room for 15 mins with someone who was covid + if you and > them were unmasked if you had the option of one or both of you in a mask? > Masks may not be that great, but I?d take the option of one or both of us > in a mask because I know a physical barrier intercepting droplets has to > stop some of the potential contaminants even if some get around it. But > that could still equate to reduced risk of infection relative to if there > was no barrier. That plus good physical distance could make the difference > between getting infected and not. Maybe using covid in that example is > inadequate. Too many people are not really scared of covid. What if it was > smallpox which has a 30% fatality rate? Would you go unmasked saying your > odds of were the same as if you were both masked since masks are useless? > > I read that Singapore as a society learned from SARS and H1N1 to mask > early in the covid-19 spread and was spared significantly. They also has > adequate supplies on hand: On January 20, Taiwan?s equivalent of the > Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it had ?44 > million surgical masks, 1.9 million N95 masks, and 1,100 negative pressure > isolation rooms? ready to go, according to an article > in the *Journal > of the American Medical Association*. Masks became National mandate there > on April 14 ?when stepping out of the house with some exceptions.? They > delivered masks to all their citizens prior to the announcement. Singapore > doesn?t mess around when it comes to enforcement of laws: > > ?Individuals who are caught refusing to wear a mask will be fined S$300 on > their first offence, while those who flout the rule a second time will be > fined S$1,000. Egregious cases will be prosecuted in court... Foreign > residents caught breaching these rules might have their work passes or > permanent resident status revoked.? > > They also locked down much of society and promoted distancing, with > enforcement: ?According to the Ministry of Health, nearly 3,000 > enforcement officers and ambassadors from more than 30 agencies have been > deployed daily to public spaces in HDB estates across the island, to ensure > that safe distancing measures are kept to. > > They contained it pretty well going by this > > > Not perfect but enviable compared to the US. How much of that can be > attributed to masks? I don?t know of course. But the cost of not masking is > high if masks can make a difference, so why chance it. > > -Henry > > On Jan 22, 2021, at 3:21 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] the science might be wrong > > > > >>? I am a machine life form- spike > > >?- and a rare one too - Made In America bill w > > Ah yes, a kindhearted comment by a fellow driver of American made cars. > We both think highly of our American-made products. > > But there is more. I still think I might have caught an early case of > covid. I have not been tested for antibodies and refuse to go to the > hospital to find out: too dangerous. So I will assign it about a 30% > possibility, but whatever was that condition which kept me sick for nearly > two months was unlike anything I have ever had before. > > There were long term effects such as change of personality. I used to be > such a turd bird. It is the opposite of what happened to Alice Cooper: now > it?s more Mister Nice Guy. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN6ngThqMEs > > I open doors for little old ladies, unlike Cooper who started out doing > that and stopped when he suffered abuse which caused him cynicism, as > described in the song. With me, it?s more Mister Clean, my dog stopped > biting me, the cat stopped clawing my eyes, the works. I fear it is a > lasting impact of that virus: a personality change caused all this. > > I will grant that the little old ladies I help don?t look nearly as old to > me as they once did. But I digress. > > > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image1.png Type: image/png Size: 241878 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image2.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 56723 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image0.png Type: image/png Size: 154652 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ExiMod at protonmail.com Sat Jan 23 01:43:44 2021 From: ExiMod at protonmail.com (ExiMod) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 01:43:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <01a101d6f0fc$11204280$3360c780$@rainier66.com> <29216019-8C0C-4F98-AE28-4305DD2DA3EF@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: <3YcN3R_vvBwZFW9QjgARu3eGfuqA1aJou_aIwH8NR9UREUa3sLvOgLwTIHdO1mL_RrYgXoF8Vp2k275gZCfxYcEfM3Qw3n239-YuXhhrkGg=@protonmail.com> Yes, Posts containing images should first reduce them in size to below 150KB in total to avoid them being held for authorisation by the moderator. (As well as not screwing up the display in some browsers). ExiMod Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email. ??????? Original Message ??????? On Saturday, 23 January 2021 01:27, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > With my age and weak heart I don't really have a choice. I'll wear Adrian's > mask anywhere in public. The pros and cons are enormously different. bill w > (wow, Henry, your post ran way way off the side of my page) > > _______________________________________________ > >> 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 hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sat Jan 23 07:17:40 2021 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 02:17:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Sorry about those image sizes. They fit my screen when composing the email, and I was expecting to get prompted by my client about what size to make them before sending, but it didn't happen for some reason. Are people really following the mask mandates where you live in the US? We're pretty good about such things in Massachusetts, same for vaccination willingness, highest in the country I think. But even here I see many younger adults acting fearless or oppositional about the whole thing. Americans are so independent and self-oriented relatively speaking. We look for and relish in opportunities to assert ourselves and our agency. Lockdowns are similarly ignored. Haven't you had underground events broken up in your area, surveillance camera footage shown on the news of tons of people fleeing a warehouse or bar? I see such things happening in England too. I'm guessing Singapore didn't have those problems of citizens ignoring the mandates. If they did, it must have been to a lesser degree. Remember, this is the place where the fine for littering is First offense: Fine up to $2,000 *On second conviction: *Fine up to $4,000 *Third or subsequent conviction: *Fine up to $10,000 Breaking some laws in Singapore can come with mandatory cane beatings. So maybe it's a matter of compliance with mandates. In the US, enforcing businesses to be closed is happening/has happened. But efforts to stop close contact and gatherings are failing in many places. Thus in those places at least, I'm afraid counting the number of cases following these mask mandates that get ignored won't be indicative of the impact of wearing a mask on the spread of covid. And as others have noted, even some compliant people won't wear them right or use ones made from adequate material. Why do doctors and dentists wear masks if they are useless? A barrier can do something to some degree, no? I mean maybe not with covid-19 in particular within a certain proximity for example. I did read about a case in a prison where there was rapid spread among a group despite appropriate PPE on the people infected. But how close were they to each other, how long were they exposed to each other, how big was the room, what was the air exchange rate in that location? Those things could all play a role in determining the probability estimate for getting infected. If all those variables were doubled, like they were twice as far apart in twice as big a room etc., would their risk drop in half? We don't have data on that. Another thing, I am skeptical of the claims that lockdowns cost x number of lives. Those estimates make assumptions and have flaws. All the time I hear counts of death by covid are flawed and overestimates. I suspect that is true to some degree, but it also seems to me that counts of death by lockdown can't have validity or are probabilistic or hypothetical. Here's something I found on this: *"The Washington Examiner* also claims that lockdowns are partly responsible for excess deaths observed in 2020 not directly attributed to COVID-19. However, this claim is unsupported by scientific evidence. Instead, both the *JAMA* and CDC studies list several possible explanations for these excess deaths, notably ?unrecognized or undocumented infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.? The *JAMA*study also highlights ?disruptions in health care access or utilization? as another possible explanation for these excess deaths, however it does not attribute disruption in healthcare access to lockdowns, as the *Washington Examiner* article does." ( https://www.newswise.com/factcheck/are-a-third-of-the-excess-deaths-this-year-not-linked-to-covid-19-yes-are-they-directly-linked-to-the-lockdown-it-s-complicated/?article_id=740863&fc=politics_channel ) Have a good weekend, -Henry On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 9:40 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > > > >?OK, so as I suspected, even if you agreed that mandating the wearing of > masks would save lives, and that it could be adequately enforced, you would > still not support it. > > > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > I wouldn?t. I would agree with wearing one myself however, and would. > > > > Consider the MINO: mask in name only. They are made of spandex. Very > comfortable, one scarcely knows one is wearing it. Doesn?t get wet > inside. Doesn?t trap anything. Clearly states it is not for medical > purposes, it is only for fashion purposes. Well, that is still a mask. > > > > Government cannot force this upon us. We don?t want a government with the > power to dictate that kind of thing, particularly since it has demonstrated > it doesn?t know how to handle pandemics. Some governments did better than > others, but the better ones did less. > > > > 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 Sat Jan 23 08:33:45 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 19:33:45 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 23 Jan 2021 at 01:41, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > > > >?OK, so as I suspected, even if you agreed that mandating the wearing of > masks would save lives, and that it could be adequately enforced, you would > still not support it. > > > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > I wouldn?t. I would agree with wearing one myself however, and would. > > > > Consider the MINO: mask in name only. They are made of spandex. Very > comfortable, one scarcely knows one is wearing it. Doesn?t get wet > inside. Doesn?t trap anything. Clearly states it is not for medical > purposes, it is only for fashion purposes. Well, that is still a mask. > > > > Government cannot force this upon us. We don?t want a government with the > power to dictate that kind of thing, particularly since it has demonstrated > it doesn?t know how to handle pandemics. Some governments did better than > others, but the better ones did less. > There would be no point enforcing anything unless the enforcement led to a better outcome, and outweighed the inconvenience and limitation to personal liberty. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 08:38:57 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 19:38:57 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 23 Jan 2021 at 18:19, Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Sorry about those image sizes. They fit my screen when composing the > email, and I was expecting to get prompted by my client about what size to > make them before sending, but it didn't happen for some reason. > > Are people really following the mask mandates where you live in the US? > We're pretty good about such things in Massachusetts, same for vaccination > willingness, highest in the country I think. But even here I see many > younger adults acting fearless or oppositional about the whole thing. > Americans are so independent and self-oriented relatively speaking. We look > for and relish in opportunities to assert ourselves and our agency. > Lockdowns are similarly ignored. Haven't you had underground events broken > up in your area, surveillance camera footage shown on the news of tons of > people fleeing a warehouse or bar? I see such things happening in England > too. I'm guessing Singapore didn't have those problems of citizens ignoring > the mandates. If they did, it must have been to a lesser degree. Remember, > this is the place where the fine for littering is > First offense: Fine up to $2,000 > > *On second conviction: *Fine up to $4,000 > > *Third or subsequent conviction: *Fine up to $10,000 > > Breaking some laws in Singapore can come with mandatory cane beatings. > > So maybe it's a matter of compliance with mandates. In the US, enforcing > businesses to be closed is happening/has happened. But efforts to stop > close contact and gatherings are failing in many places. Thus in those > places at least, I'm afraid counting the number of cases following these > mask mandates that get ignored won't be indicative of the impact of wearing > a mask on the spread of covid. And as others have noted, even some > compliant people won't wear them right or use ones made from adequate > material. > > Why do doctors and dentists wear masks if they are useless? A barrier can > do something to some degree, no? I mean maybe not with covid-19 in > particular within a certain proximity for example. I did read about a case > in a prison where there was rapid spread among a group despite appropriate > PPE on the people infected. But how close were they to each other, how long > were they exposed to each other, how big was the room, what was the air > exchange rate in that location? Those things could all play a role in > determining the probability estimate for getting infected. If all those > variables were doubled, like they were twice as far apart in twice as big a > room etc., would their risk drop in half? We don't have data on that. > > Another thing, I am skeptical of the claims that lockdowns cost x number > of lives. Those estimates make assumptions and have flaws. All the time I > hear counts of death by covid are flawed and overestimates. I suspect that > is true to some degree, but it also seems to me that counts of death by > lockdown can't have validity or are probabilistic or hypothetical. Here's > something I found on this: > > *"The Washington Examiner* also claims that lockdowns are partly > responsible for excess deaths observed in 2020 not directly attributed to > COVID-19. However, this claim is unsupported by scientific evidence. > Instead, both the *JAMA* and CDC studies list several possible > explanations for these excess deaths, notably ?unrecognized or undocumented > infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.? The > *JAMA*study also highlights ?disruptions in health care access or > utilization? as another possible explanation for these excess deaths, > however it does not attribute disruption in healthcare access to lockdowns, > as the *Washington Examiner* article does." ( > https://www.newswise.com/factcheck/are-a-third-of-the-excess-deaths-this-year-not-linked-to-covid-19-yes-are-they-directly-linked-to-the-lockdown-it-s-complicated/?article_id=740863&fc=politics_channel > ) > > Have a good weekend, > > -Henry > As Spike has admitted, the true objection is ideological: even if masks could be shown to save lives, the benefits of forcing people to wear them would not outweigh the cost to personal liberty for those who subscribe to that particular way of thinking. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 23 09:20:50 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 09:20:50 +0000 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 208, Issue 46 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/01/2021 19:20, John K Clark wrote: > Assuming this makes it through the moderation and approval process > that I must undergo this will be my last post to the Extropian List, > my first was on September 29 1993. I will unsubscribe after this, it > will be the first time in 28 years I have not been a member. It pains > me to do this but even though He Who Must Not Be Named is no longer > president I'm still under moderation and there is just no point in > cluttering up my mailbox with posts that I can't respond to without a > lot of red tape, besides the list has change so much in the last 4 > years from being a bunch of logic loving free market libertarians > (small l) that it once was I hardly recognize it anymore. Thanks > everybody for decades of great discussions. Goodbye. > > ?John K Clark I know he's not? going to read this, but nobody else has said anything, so I'm saying it: Very sorry to hear that, we are worse off overall without him. I know he's tended to go off the rails a bit in the last year or so, but who doesn't now and then, and that hardly outweighs the positive contributions he's made to this list over the last twenty seven years. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 23 09:34:10 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 09:34:10 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/01/2021 19:20, bill w wrote: > > https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html > > So then, tell me what's wrong with these data?? ?bill w > > On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 12:26 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > > wrote: > > On 22/01/2021 00:31, Spike wrote: > > With masks in particular, data accumulates showing they don't > really do much, if anything.? We are seeing plenty of evidence in > Florida, comparing counties which require masks with those which > do not.? It isn't at all clear they help slow infection rates. > > Well, there's masks and there's masks. The word includes > everything from > a closely-fitted medical mask with a filter that is probably pretty > effective, to a flimsy piece of cloth or paper with no seal at all > with > the wearer's skin, which is completely ineffective. Not to mention > that > if people have to be told to wear their masks around their noses > as well > as their mouths, or "Don't wear your mask on your chin", you can be > pretty sure that a lot of them might as well not be wearing any > mask at > all. I've stopped noticing the people wearing masks with big gaps > between their cheeks and the mask, but I'd say that probably most > people > who wear them might as well not be. > > Just as with statistics about deaths, statistics about masks are > pretty > useless. At least as useless as the masks themselves, probably more. > Absolutely nothing, as it stands. The problem is, it's talking about a situation that doesn't exist. A hypothetical situation in which people are all wearing double-layered cloth masks (far from the truth, certainly where I live), properly (also far from the truth), and consistently following proper sterile technique (laughably far from the truth). So while there's nothing wrong with the article in theory, theoretical is exactly what it is, and it's theory breaks down instantly in the real world, because it's assumptions are wrong. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 23 09:48:43 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 09:48:43 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4f4c773d-5bbb-c5ed-3492-3eda761f84e1@zaiboc.net> On 22/01/2021 19:20, spike wrote: > Do let me be very clear: I am a strong believer in social distancing.? > That works.? It works even better for me: I not a people person.? I am > a machine person.? I am not always completely ?sure of the person > part.? I am a machine life form. I'm sick of saying "It's NOT 'social distancing', that's what I do! It's /physical/ distancing!". I reckon that many people are less socially-distant from each other now, because of the lockdowns and the increase in communication over things like Zoom. Even I have taken part in more bloody quizzes in the last year than in the rest of my life. Spike, you're not unique in being a machine life-form, we are all machine life-forms, all 8 billion of us, plus all the trillions of other life-forms on the planet (all soft squishy machines, so far). Being a machine doesn't preclude being a person, in fact it's a prerequisite. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 15:20:55 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 09:20:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: There would be no point enforcing anything unless the enforcement led to a better outcome, and outweighed the inconvenience and limitation to personal liberty. Stathis Now c'mon, really? Limitation to liberty? You cannot be serious. If I met you and you were not wearing a mask I would say: "I have a weak heart. If I get the virus, I am a dead man. Is not wearing a mask so important to you that you ignore the threat to my life? You could have it and be symptom free, and give it to me, whereupon I die. A little inconvenient for me, would you say?" bill w On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 2:35 AM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, 23 Jan 2021 at 01:41, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf >> Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >> >> >> >> >?OK, so as I suspected, even if you agreed that mandating the wearing of >> masks would save lives, and that it could be adequately enforced, you would >> still not support it. >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Stathis Papaioannou >> >> >> >> >> >> I wouldn?t. I would agree with wearing one myself however, and would. >> >> >> >> Consider the MINO: mask in name only. They are made of spandex. Very >> comfortable, one scarcely knows one is wearing it. Doesn?t get wet >> inside. Doesn?t trap anything. Clearly states it is not for medical >> purposes, it is only for fashion purposes. Well, that is still a mask. >> >> >> >> Government cannot force this upon us. We don?t want a government with >> the power to dictate that kind of thing, particularly since it has >> demonstrated it doesn?t know how to handle pandemics. Some governments did >> better than others, but the better ones did less. >> > > There would be no point enforcing anything unless the enforcement led to a > better outcome, and outweighed the inconvenience and limitation to personal > liberty. > >> -- > Stathis Papaioannou > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 23 15:44:26 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 07:44:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005901d6f19e$a21b4030$e651c090$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat ? >>?Government cannot force this upon us. We don?t want a government with the power to dictate that kind of thing, particularly since it has demonstrated it doesn?t know how to handle pandemics. Some governments did better than others, but the better ones did less. >?There would be no point enforcing anything unless the enforcement led to a better outcome, and outweighed the inconvenience and limitation to personal liberty. -- Stathis Papaioannou Ja. We live in times where the USA is not really enforcing even immigration law. We are not effectively stopping Antifa riots, even after it was shown it isn?t a political protest (they are continuing.) There is no way we can enforce wearing masks even if we wanted to. I notice none of the legislatures have even tried. Hell we can?t even define the terms ?mask? and ?wear.? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 23 15:50:05 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 07:50:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <4f4c773d-5bbb-c5ed-3492-3eda761f84e1@zaiboc.net> References: <4f4c773d-5bbb-c5ed-3492-3eda761f84e1@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <006001d6f19f$6ba41da0$42ec58e0$@rainier66.com> >> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat >.I'm sick of saying "It's NOT 'social distancing', that's what I do! It's physical distancing!". I reckon that many people are less socially-distant from each other now, because of the lockdowns and the increase in communication over things like Zoom. Even I have taken part in more bloody quizzes in the last year than in the rest of my life. Ja, physical distant from other people works like magic for staying safe. It really does. Masks might help some. >.Spike, you're not unique in being a machine life-form, we are all machine life-forms, all 8 billion of us, plus all the trillions of other life-forms on the planet (all soft squishy machines, so far). Being a machine doesn't preclude being a person, in fact it's a prerequisite. -- Ben Zaiboc Hi Ben, ja, but I am machinier than thou. Some people are sex machines, but I am a machine machine. We should arrange a contest, see who is the machinest of all. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 23 16:04:49 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 08:04:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007901d6f1a1$7a8da460$6fa8ed20$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2021 7:21 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong There would be no point enforcing anything unless the enforcement led to a better outcome, and outweighed the inconvenience and limitation to personal liberty. Stathis Now c'mon, really? Limitation to liberty? You cannot be serious. If I met you and you were not wearing a mask I would say: "I have a weak heart. If I get the virus, I am a dead man. Is not wearing a mask so important to you that you ignore the threat to my life? You could have it and be symptom free, and give it to me, whereupon I die. A little inconvenient for me, would you say?" bill w BillW, here?s the right thing: if you have these conditions, don?t go anywhere near people. Don?t let anyone come within 20 ft. That 6 ft distancing business is baloney. 6 meters will get er dun however (see there, metric is your friend.) You can arrange grocery delivery. That?s what we did for my mother and my bride?s father, both of whom are older than you sir, and both in frail condition. Don?t depend on government: they can?t do it. Lotsa people need a job: that whole door dash with the groceries business will save a lotta lives and employ the masses. Reasoning: if the elderly don?t need to push a shopping cart down the aisle, the risk of a fall is reduced. Side note: I wrote a few weeks ago about a friend who was having some difficulties with balance and falling. It was the mister who was taking the dives, but last week they were up cleaning out the attic (oy vey, why?) The missus fumbled on the last step of the ladder on the way down, broke the femur. They gave her an artificial hip, which is a modern miracle: she was walking with help the next day. She responded well (she was in excellent health for someone in her late 80s) so the doctor rescinded the order that she go to rehab and allowed her to go home. But the rescinded order didn?t get thru, they sent her off to rehab, soon as she got there and checked her in, the place had a covid outbreak, now they can?t get her out for two weeks. Her risk is higher than ever. Oy vey. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Sat Jan 23 16:40:58 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 08:40:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <005f01d6ef97$dfa91a70$9efb4f50$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <005f01d6ef97$dfa91a70$9efb4f50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-20 17:51, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > I have never worn a mask outdoors, for safety reasons: if one > does not wear a mask, then the proles give one lots of space. Not all of them, I imagine, and those who don't should worry you. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 23 19:18:46 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 19:18:46 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23/01/2021 16:05, Spike wrote: > Consider the MINO: mask in name only.? They are made of spandex.? Very > comfortable, one scarcely knows one is wearing it Excellent idea, Spike. I shall make one forthwith. I wear a MINO, but made of paper, same as most people here. I only wear it to get into shops that may refuse me entry if I don't, but the damn thing fogs up my glasses and is a pain to wear. I tear it off almost before I'm out of the shop. Now, what have I got that's made of spandex, that I can cut up? It will be just as much use as the paper ones, but more bearable to wear. -- Ben Zaiboc From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 20:11:54 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 14:11:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ben, get a good mask from Adrian. I have one and it does not fog my glasses. I think he said that was as close to N 95 as he could get. It is adjustable: you heat it with a hair dryer, bend it to your needs, hold it until it cools, and then you have a great mask. bill w On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 1:20 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 23/01/2021 16:05, Spike wrote: > > Consider the MINO: mask in name only. They are made of spandex. Very > > comfortable, one scarcely knows one is wearing it > > Excellent idea, Spike. I shall make one forthwith. I wear a MINO, but > made of paper, same as most people here. I only wear it to get into > shops that may refuse me entry if I don't, but the damn thing fogs up my > glasses and is a pain to wear. I tear it off almost before I'm out of > the shop. > > Now, what have I got that's made of spandex, that I can cut up? > > It will be just as much use as the paper ones, but more bearable to wear. > > -- > 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 stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 22:23:25 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 09:23:25 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <005901d6f19e$a21b4030$e651c090$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> <005901d6f19e$a21b4030$e651c090$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 02:45, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > *?* > > >>?Government cannot force this upon us. We don?t want a government with > the power to dictate that kind of thing, particularly since it has > demonstrated it doesn?t know how to handle pandemics. Some governments did > better than others, but the better ones did less. > > > > >?There would be no point enforcing anything unless the enforcement led to > a better outcome, and outweighed the inconvenience and limitation to > personal liberty. > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > Ja. We live in times where the USA is not really enforcing even > immigration law. We are not effectively stopping Antifa riots, even after > it was shown it isn?t a political protest (they are continuing.) There is > no way we can enforce wearing masks even if we wanted to. I notice none of > the legislatures have even tried. Hell we can?t even define the terms > ?mask? and ?wear.? > It?s pretty easy. If the police see you not wearing a mask, they issue a fine. It is their judgement as to whether you are wearing it properly. This will increase mask wearing from, say, 60% if it were voluntary to 90%. You can never reach 100% compliance with any law. If 90% rather than 60% compliance will make a substantial difference to the death rate, in my opinion it is worth doing, and if there is no legal mechanism to do it this is a serious deficit in the law. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 22:32:50 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 09:32:50 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <007901d6f1a1$7a8da460$6fa8ed20$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> <007901d6f1a1$7a8da460$6fa8ed20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 03:05, 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:* Saturday, January 23, 2021 7:21 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong > > > > There would be no point enforcing anything unless the enforcement led to a > better outcome, and outweighed the inconvenience and limitation to personal > liberty. Stathis > > > > Now c'mon, really? Limitation to liberty? You cannot be serious. If I > met you and you were not wearing a mask I would say: "I have a weak > heart. If I get the virus, I am a dead man. Is not wearing a mask so > important to you that you ignore the threat to my life? You could have it > and be symptom free, and give it to me, whereupon I die. A little > inconvenient for me, would you say?" > > > > bill w > > > > > > BillW, here?s the right thing: if you have these conditions, don?t go > anywhere near people. Don?t let anyone come within 20 ft. That 6 ft > distancing business is baloney. 6 meters will get er dun however (see > there, metric is your friend.) You can arrange grocery delivery. That?s > what we did for my mother and my bride?s father, both of whom are older > than you sir, and both in frail condition. > > > > Don?t depend on government: they can?t do it. > > > > Lotsa people need a job: that whole door dash with the groceries business > will save a lotta lives and employ the masses. Reasoning: if the elderly > don?t need to push a shopping cart down the aisle, the risk of a fall is > reduced. > > > > Side note: I wrote a few weeks ago about a friend who was having some > difficulties with balance and falling. It was the mister who was taking > the dives, but last week they were up cleaning out the attic (oy vey, > why?) The missus fumbled on the last step of the ladder on the way down, > broke the femur. They gave her an artificial hip, which is a modern > miracle: she was walking with help the next day. She responded well (she > was in excellent health for someone in her late 80s) so the doctor > rescinded the order that she go to rehab and allowed her to go home. But > the rescinded order didn?t get thru, they sent her off to rehab, soon as > she got there and checked her in, the place had a covid outbreak, now they > can?t get her out for two weeks. Her risk is higher than ever. Oy vey. > But this means that some people will be effectively prisoners in their own homes for months if not years, whereas eliminating the virus will allow things to return to normal, or almost so. That is what occurred in the Australian state where I live. It may be judged that the 3 months of enforced restrictions to achieve this was not worthwhile, but while many grumbled during the restrictions, most are now glad that we went through it. It may also turn out that it was all fir nothing because a more infectious variant of the virus will come back, but we will see. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 23 23:18:16 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 15:18:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00f901d6f1de$081b9f30$1852dd90$@rainier66.com> >...> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong On 23/01/2021 16:05, Spike wrote: >>... Consider the MINO: mask in name only.? They are made of spandex.? Very > comfortable, one scarcely knows one is wearing it >...Excellent idea, Spike... Thanks but it isn't my idea. I did notice that in the past few weeks most people you see outdoors have switched over to the spandex ones. >... I shall make one forthwith.... Eh, or just order them. They don't cost much. >... I wear a MINO, but made of paper... Same here. >...Now, what have I got that's made of spandex, that I can cut up? >...It will be just as much use as the paper ones, but more bearable to wear. -- Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ Ben whatever you cut up is likely more valuable than the product. They say on the package: not for surgical use. It's their gentle way of saying the obvious: it doesn't stop viruses or bacteria. They don't fog your glasses and don't even get wet inside, which tells you all you need to know. If it doesn't get wet inside, it isn't actually doing anything. They are really easy to clean: just rinse them off and they are dry within a minute or two. My argument isn't so much that masks don't work: some of them do. But mask mandates do not. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 23 23:28:04 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 15:28:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> <007901d6f1a1$7a8da460$6fa8ed20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <010001d6f1df$66bf6a70$343e3f50$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat BillW, here?s the right thing: if you have these conditions, don?t go anywhere near people. Don?t let anyone come within 20 ft. That 6 ft distancing business is baloney. 6 meters will get er dun however (see there, metric is your friend.) You can arrange grocery delivery. That?s what we did for my mother and my bride?s father, both of whom are older than you sir, and both in frail condition. Don?t depend on government: they can?t do it. ? >?But this means that some people will be effectively prisoners in their own homes for months if not years, whereas eliminating the virus will allow things to return to normal, or almost so? It is clear to me that we cannot eliminate this virus. The efforts only were to keep the medical facilities from becoming overwhelmed until the vaccine was ready. The vaccine is ready. Then we discovered that the bottleneck for that isn?t manufacturing capacity, it is in getting enough proles to watch the recipients after they get their vaccination. Result: California where we take liability law very seriously, is dead last in the nation for percentage of its populace vaccinated, while benighted West Virginia leads the nation. Great to see West Virginia win something for a change, other than shooting competitions (we always win those but no one cares.) >?That is what occurred in the Australian state where I live? Stathis Papaioannou Australia and New Zealand have an advantage: a single government running the entire island. In the rest of the world, borders are not entirely enforceable. In the US, we aren?t seriously trying. The US has an additional problem: there are no borders between jurisdictions on covid. State lines are not borders. But the policy is set at the state level. spike -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 23:32:40 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 17:32:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <00f901d6f1de$081b9f30$1852dd90$@rainier66.com> References: <00f901d6f1de$081b9f30$1852dd90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I have read where if you take these paper masks that seem to be the majority, and double them, you do get some protection. bill w On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 5:19 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >...> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > > Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong > > On 23/01/2021 16:05, Spike wrote: > >>... Consider the MINO: mask in name only. They are made of spandex. > Very > > > comfortable, one scarcely knows one is wearing it > > >...Excellent idea, Spike... > > Thanks but it isn't my idea. I did notice that in the past few weeks most > people you see outdoors have switched over to the spandex ones. > > > >... I shall make one forthwith.... > > Eh, or just order them. They don't cost much. > > > >... I wear a MINO, but made of paper... > > Same here. > > >...Now, what have I got that's made of spandex, that I can cut up? > > >...It will be just as much use as the paper ones, but more bearable to > wear. > > -- > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > > Ben whatever you cut up is likely more valuable than the product. > > They say on the package: not for surgical use. It's their gentle way of > saying the obvious: it doesn't stop viruses or bacteria. They don't fog > your glasses and don't even get wet inside, which tells you all you need to > know. If it doesn't get wet inside, it isn't actually doing anything. > > They are really easy to clean: just rinse them off and they are dry within > a > minute or two. > > My argument isn't so much that masks don't work: some of them do. But mask > mandates do not. > > 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 Sun Jan 24 01:39:07 2021 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 17:39:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Borders (was Section 230 and Antitrust) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20210123173907.Horde.v5xwnq1_HCjBY-JADcNQcO2@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Omar Rahman: >> Countries do publish their IQ measurements and no, they >> are not all the same, and obviously some countries have lower IQ >> populations. Instead of ranting, educate yourself. >> >> Don't deny science. >> >> Rafal > > I don?t deny science, but I don?t see a causal connection between > drawing lines on a map and the functioning of neurons. > > Could you explain the mechanism? > > Omar The causal connection between drawing lines on a map and the functioning of neurons is that compartmentalization is crucial for emergent complexity. Let me explain via the mouse smoothie gendanken experiment. It is a thought experiment of brutal simplicity. Quite simply put, because of the relationship between the arrow of time and causation, if a mouse gets homogenized by someone or something, the act of drinking the resulting smoothie does not cause the mouse pain. That is to say the divided, compartmentalized, organized mouse, despite being chemically IDENTICAL to the mouse smoothie, has very many more degrees of freedom associated with it. The difference between a mouse and mouse smoothie are cell and organelle membranes and the compartmentalization that they afford. In short, your blood-brain barrier is a example of how boundaries, be they cell-membranes or national borders, are causally connected to drawing lines on a map. They serve the same organizational roles. It is normal and healthy to have E. coli in your bowels in liver cells in your liver. But it is disastrous to have either E. coli or your own liver cells in your brain. Boundaries, regulated portals, and the diversity of environments that they afford, CAUSE emergent properties to arise. And these properties include life itself. Karl Popper was wrong: a society must tolerate some degree of intolerance to remain a distinct and functional society, independent to the rest, and serving a distinct purpose in the global economy. Between blind tolerance and xenophobia, there is a happy, healthy, medium. Stuart LaForge From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 23:49:54 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 10:49:54 +1100 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <010001d6f1df$66bf6a70$343e3f50$@rainier66.com> References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> <007901d6f1a1$7a8da460$6fa8ed20$@rainier66.com> <010001d6f1df$66bf6a70$343e3f50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 10:29, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > BillW, here?s the right thing: if you have these conditions, don?t go > anywhere near people. Don?t let anyone come within 20 ft. That 6 ft > distancing business is baloney. 6 meters will get er dun however (see > there, metric is your friend.) You can arrange grocery delivery. That?s > what we did for my mother and my bride?s father, both of whom are older > than you sir, and both in frail condition. > > > > Don?t depend on government: they can?t do it. > > > > ? > > >?But this means that some people will be effectively prisoners in their > own homes for months if not years, whereas eliminating the virus will allow > things to return to normal, or almost so? > > > > It is clear to me that we cannot eliminate this virus. The efforts only > were to keep the medical facilities from becoming overwhelmed until the > vaccine was ready. The vaccine is ready. Then we discovered that the > bottleneck for that isn?t manufacturing capacity, it is in getting enough > proles to watch the recipients after they get their vaccination. Result: > California where we take liability law very seriously, is dead last in the > nation for percentage of its populace vaccinated, while benighted West > Virginia leads the nation. Great to see West Virginia win something for a > change, other than shooting competitions (we always win those but no one > cares.) > > > > >?That is what occurred in the Australian state where I live? Stathis > Papaioannou > > > > > > Australia and New Zealand have an advantage: a single government running > the entire island. In the rest of the world, borders are not entirely > enforceable. In the US, we aren?t seriously trying. The US has an > additional problem: there are no borders between jurisdictions on covid. > State lines are not borders. But the policy is set at the state level. > That?s the case fir New Zealand, but not Australia. Australia is a federation, with the states coming together in 1901, based roughly on the US model. The states have responsibility for such things as health care and the criminal law; what is a crime in one state might not be a crime in another state. There is normally free movement between states, but when there were COVID-19 cases in some states but not others the various state governments set up border restrictions, enforced by police. Apparently this is all allowed by the Australian constitution, though it came as a surprise to me. Currently, the only cases in Australia are in overseas visitors, who are in hotel quarantine. It might still all fall apart since about once a month there seems to breach in the quarantine system, though only once, in Victoria, has this led to a significant outbreak. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 24 03:46:42 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 19:46:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> <007901d6f1a1$7a8da460$6fa8ed20$@ rainier66.com> <010001d6f1df$66bf6a70$343e3f50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <016301d6f203$87f4a830$97ddf890$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >?That?s the case fir New Zealand, but not Australia. Australia is a federation, with the states coming together in 1901, based roughly on the US model. The states have responsibility for such things as health care and the criminal law; what is a crime in one state might not be a crime in another state. There is normally free movement between states, but when there were COVID-19 cases in some states but not others the various state governments set up border restrictions, enforced by police. Apparently this is all allowed by the Australian constitution, though it came as a surprise to me. Currently, the only cases in Australia are in overseas visitors, who are in hotel quarantine. It might still all fall apart since about once a month there seems to breach in the quarantine system, though only once, in Victoria, has this led to a significant outbreak. -- Stathis Papaioannou Ja. In the US, there can be no legal impediment for crossing state lines. It has been tried, back during the Great Depression of the 1930s, where economic refugees from the dust bowl states such as Oklahoma came to California. You might have heard of the desperately poor Okies, coming to havest in California, so hungry they would eat the fruit they were being hired to pick. The Californians tried to stop them at the state line. The Feds showed up and gently informed the Californians at eager gunpoint that they can?t do that. In came the Okies. Some are still here to this day. I once had a supervisor at Lockheed who was a descendant of the 1930s Okies. They were a hardy no-bullshit bunch of people. In the US, we can never close the borders. The penalties for manufacturing dope in Mexico is lower than it is here (or it is easier to get away with it) so there is always profit in making it there and bringing it here. Covid comes along for the ride. Every country which has a lot of airplane traffic will have a lot of covid. Poster child example: Belgium, with a covid death per million third worst in the world, with the first and second worst being San Marino and Gibraltar, each with a mere 33 thousand citizens, which one might argue challenges statistical significance. But Belgium has over 11 million. Their deaths per million are nearly 1800 so far. UK is at about 1400, USA a bit under 1300. All three of those guys have a lotta planes in and out every day, and that cannot change: many in those countries make their living in ways that involve international travel. New Zealand can?t keep it out forever: they can?t get by without tourist money. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 24 14:59:06 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 06:59:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: <033001d6ef7f$b2f9d1d0$18ed7570$@rainier66.com> <00c201d6f008$d657a100$8306e300$@rainier66.com> <003601d6f053$43941ba0$cabc52e0$@rainier66.com> <003701d6f07b$5b6afc30$1240f490$@rainier66.com> <004301d6f0cc$749736f0$5dc5a4d0$@rainier66.com> <007901d6f1a1$7a8da460$6fa8ed20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003501d6f261$76a76640$63f632c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat ? >?.But this means that some people will be effectively prisoners in their own homes for months if not years, whereas eliminating the virus will allow things to return to normal, or almost so. ? the 3 months of enforced restrictions to achieve this ? -- Stathis Papaioannou After the fact, we are told we cannot eliminate the virus. Yesterday a federal government official declared there is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months. Once Americans give the government power to restrict freedom even temporarily, that freedom is gone forever. They can declare a new emergency, then grab even more power. In California the governor used a lot of emergency powers to make executive mandates. Three months went by. They didn?t stop him, he kept issuing new emergency mandates. The virus didn?t go away, it got worse. California is dead last in percentage of the population vaccinated. Those who trade away freedom for security get neither. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 24 19:15:50 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 11:15:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] rent a dog Message-ID: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> I thought it was a really good idea. Covid lockdown, governor orders people to stay home. But of course, you still need to walk your dog, everyone knows that. An unwalked dog is an unhappy dog. Well, not everyone has a dog, and cats don't play that game. So then it came to me: rent-a-dog. They call up, I would deliver the hapless beast to the home, they put a leash on him, go out all they want, social rank doesn't go down a bit, the proles pay me, I make a buttload. Didn't quite work out. Now I am stuck with all these rental dogs. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 28035 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 24 19:59:58 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 13:59:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] rent a dog In-Reply-To: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> References: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Well, Spike, you could sell the dogs to some Koreans, which I am sure you have in your neighborhood. Just a thought. bill w On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 1:17 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > > I thought it was a really good idea. Covid lockdown, governor orders > people to stay home. But of course, you still need to walk your dog, > everyone knows that. An unwalked dog is an unhappy dog. > > > > Well, not everyone has a dog, and cats don?t play that game. > > > > So then it came to me: rent-a-dog. They call up, I would deliver the > hapless beast to the home, they put a leash on him, go out all they want, > social rank doesn?t go down a bit, the proles pay me, I make a buttload. > > > > Didn?t quite work out. Now I am stuck with all these rental dogs. > > > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 28035 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 24 20:12:12 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 12:12:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] rent a dog In-Reply-To: References: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00a301d6f28d$343705a0$9ca510e0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] rent a dog >?Well, Spike, you could sell the dogs to some Koreans, which I am sure you have in your neighborhood. Just a thought. bill w Not just unthinkable, illegal. Dogs are such good sports, I just love em. Not that way, dammit, I mean as friends and playmates. After all that happened, we make it illegal to devour dogs, but not bats. I don?t get it. Better idea: hitch them up and sell them as a sled team. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 24 21:23:19 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 21:23:19 +0000 Subject: [ExI] rent a dog In-Reply-To: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> References: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 19:18, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > I thought it was a really good idea. Covid lockdown, governor orders people to stay home. But of course, you still need to walk your dog, everyone knows that. An unwalked dog is an unhappy dog. > > Well, not everyone has a dog, and cats don?t play that game. > > > spike > _______________________________________________ Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get them used to the harness. Loads of videos......... (And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 24 21:29:31 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 21:29:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] rent a dog In-Reply-To: References: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 21:23, BillK wrote: > > Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get > them used to the harness. > Loads of videos......... > > > (And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) > > BillK ---------------------------------------- But the project of 'Guide cats for the blind' was a bit of a disaster. :) BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 24 21:44:11 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 13:44:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] rent a dog In-Reply-To: References: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00ba01d6f29a$0d95ba10$28c12e30$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK >... cats don?t play that game. > ... > spike > _______________________________________________ >...Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get them used to the harness. Loads of videos......... >...(And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) BillK _______________________________________________ Cool, I stand corrected, thanks BillK. I already get strange looks, so no contrast there with before. I don't understand why, but no worries: I don't intend to change anything, so it doesn't matter. I have had cats before but found they know only two games: 1) Kill Something and 2) Pretend to Kill Something. Reprehensible beasts are cats, vicious predators, merciless. Dogs just like to be with their peeps. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 24 21:59:13 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 13:59:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] rent a dog In-Reply-To: References: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00bf01d6f29c$27a800f0$76f802d0$@rainier66.com> >...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] rent a dog On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 21:23, BillK wrote: > > Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get > them used to the harness. > Loads of videos......... > r=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos> > > (And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) > > BillK ---------------------------------------- >...But the project of 'Guide cats for the blind' was a bit of a disaster. :) BillK _______________________________________________ Think of all the different jobs humans have found for dogs: search and rescue, varmint control, guide, pulling sleds, tracking, military, herding sheep, guard, guiding the blind, catching frisbees, police, racing, hunting, emotional support, drug detection, of course companionship and endless entertainment, and that's just the things I can think of easily. What the heck have we been able to get cats to actually do for us? Catching mice and companionship (after a tepid fashion (when they are in the mood.)) They do catch mice which is certainly useful but one gets the feeling their motive is not to benefit the kibble-suppliers, to which they appear mostly indifferent. Rather they do that single useful activity only because it allows them to play their favorite game: Kill Something. My apologies cat-lovers. I completely understand: dogs don't generally do so well indoors, but cats do. A cat is better than the other choices if one wishes another life form in the home and one does not care for yappy little lap dogs. spike From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sun Jan 24 23:36:01 2021 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 18:36:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <586532C5-5963-45FB-BAEE-BDC4B88EE5CA@alumni.virginia.edu> Here is one sentiment. Not my plaque, and I didn?t take the pic. I got it in a forwarded group email. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image0.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 113570 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- > On Jan 23, 2021, at 11:41 AM, Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?On 2021-1-20 17:51, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> I have never worn a mask outdoors, for safety reasons: if one >> does not wear a mask, then the proles give one lots of space. > > Not all of them, I imagine, and those who don't should worry you. > > -- > *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 24 23:57:38 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 23:57:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <586532C5-5963-45FB-BAEE-BDC4B88EE5CA@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <586532C5-5963-45FB-BAEE-BDC4B88EE5CA@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 23:38, Henry Rivera via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Here is one sentiment. Not my plaque, and I didn?t take the pic. I got it > in a forwarded group email. > > -- > _______________________________________________ > > Another that I quite liked......... ?? [image: mask.jpeg] BillK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: mask.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 33919 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 25 00:08:44 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 16:08:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <586532C5-5963-45FB-BAEE-BDC4B88EE5CA@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <586532C5-5963-45FB-BAEE-BDC4B88EE5CA@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: <012001d6f2ae$3f8af170$bea0d450$@rainier66.com> >...> On Behalf Of Henry Rivera via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] the science might be wrong >...Here is one sentiment. Not my plaque, and I didn?t take the pic. I got it in a forwarded group email. It is a sentiment, but somewhere we should express the sentiment that masks might be making things worse: they give people a false sense of security, encouraging them to gather once more. If a mask is effective against viruses, they must trap moisture, which means they must get wet inside. The paper ones do a little. The cloth ones do a lot. The spandex ones don't. But not everyone gets that. Soooo... they are switching over to the more comfortable spandex ones and discovering HEY, no problem these aren't bad. But they aren't doing anything either. And people wearing them imagine they are caring for others, when they might be endangering others. Masks may or may not help. But distance always does. Distance is your friend. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 25 17:37:32 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 11:37:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] rent a dog In-Reply-To: <00bf01d6f29c$27a800f0$76f802d0$@rainier66.com> References: <006a01d6f285$547452d0$fd5cf870$@rainier66.com> <00bf01d6f29c$27a800f0$76f802d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Reprehensible beasts are cats, vicious predators, merciless. Dogs just like to be with their peeps. spike Granted that they are killers, they are a lot of fun, and not only as kittens (always get two; they are hilarious together). In those very rare times I have been without a cat I immediately went and got a couple. Almost all of them are introverted, like me. So I leave them alone most of the time and they leave me alone most of the time. Every cat I have ever had had a distinct personality - more than dogs I would say. We call them pets. I do like to pet them and make them purr. I do like to give them people tuna (only once a week - the proteins are too strong for their kidneys if eaten too often). "They are just substitute children." That person does not have a clue as to how much you can love a cat. Of course in my case, I would love goats, weasels and more (no snakes - too cold). And if you think that dogs are not killers, just starve one and see the edible population of the neigh- borhood diminish rapidly. But, you say, even well-fed cats will kill. True - just doing their job and getting some different protein. My cats are older and usually bring their prey into the house (often moles) and hardly ever eat them. - just to play with. Occasionally we find remains behind the sofa, sometimes we have a mad chase around the house, with the cats watching curiously (do we think we are cats?), and manage to catch a few They did hide though when we were chasing a possum. bill w On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 4:00 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > >...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] rent a dog > > On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 21:23, BillK wrote: > > > > Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get > > them used to the harness. > > Loads of videos......... > > > r=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos> > > > > (And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) > > > > BillK > ---------------------------------------- > > >...But the project of 'Guide cats for the blind' was a bit of a disaster. > :) > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > > > > Think of all the different jobs humans have found for dogs: search and > rescue, varmint control, guide, pulling sleds, tracking, military, herding > sheep, guard, guiding the blind, catching frisbees, police, racing, > hunting, > emotional support, drug detection, of course companionship and endless > entertainment, and that's just the things I can think of easily. > > What the heck have we been able to get cats to actually do for us? > Catching > mice and companionship (after a tepid fashion (when they are in the mood.)) > They do catch mice which is certainly useful but one gets the feeling their > motive is not to benefit the kibble-suppliers, to which they appear mostly > indifferent. Rather they do that single useful activity only because it > allows them to play their favorite game: Kill Something. > > My apologies cat-lovers. I completely understand: dogs don't generally do > so well indoors, but cats do. A cat is better than the other choices if > one > wishes another life form in the home and one does not care for yappy little > lap dogs. > > 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 Mon Jan 25 18:28:06 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 18:28:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 24/01/2021 23:36, Henry Rivera wrote: > Here is one sentiment. Not my plaque, and I didn?t take the pic. And I hope you don't agree with the sentiment, either. It seems that now any point of view that someone disagrees with can be vilified by calling it 'anti-X', where X is some pov you approve of. This takes it way beyond things like vaccination, where the science is incontrovertible, and applies it to anything, even where there are reasonable grounds for disagreement, and conveniently dismisses nuances that may exist (as with 'mask-wearing'). This is disappointing, because it greatly weakens the impact that the term 'anti-vaxxer' has. If I thought they had the brains, I'd suspect it was a deliberate ploy by them, to achieve exactly this end, but I don't. It's probably just a happy (for them) coincidence. Don't think that this opinion makes me an 'anti-masker', because I'm not (nuances, remember). -- Ben Zaiboc From robot at ultimax.com Mon Jan 25 22:25:33 2021 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 17:25:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> >> Well, not everyone has a dog, and cats don?t play that game. > Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get > them used to the harness. > (And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I had this wicked smart lynx-point Siamese named "Spanky" (his name when he was given to me). (Spanky was so clever he could even send email. This was in the mid-1990s when there were half a dozen discrete steps required to do that. One day I came home and spotted the connection status light on the dialup ISBM modem was lit and that there was a "you have mail" message on my Mac IIsi's screen. For security, I *never* leave my computer connected when I leave home. I rushed over, spun my office chair around, and there was Spanky sitting it calmly licking himself. I clicked the box, and a message full of garbage popped up. After saying "whiskey-tango-foxtrot-interrogative" to myself for a few minutes, I put it together-- the cat had managed to initiate a connection, which is possible on the Mac with a keyboard shortcut (I forget which keys) but you have to be in the correct active window, then managed to switch active windows to Eudora (which was usually running in the background) which theoretically you could do by shifting the mouse and clicking at the right instant, then instantiate a new message (Ctrl-N which requires 2 paws), then populate the fields (To:, From:, Subject:, content, which works so long as you manage to hit Tab every once in a while), then Send the message which can be done with a single carriage return *if* the cursor was in the right place of the new active window. The message that was waiting for me was a bounce report, of course, b/c the outgoing message was gibberish, composed by a cat walking on the keyboard. Like those monkeys eventually managing to typing Shakespeare's plays. Still, for a cat, he got pretty far. If I'd had Autofill enabled (or if Spanky had better spelling/luck with his paws), somebody might have actually gotten that message. Then I would have had to explain why to that person I appeared to be sending incoherent email. In retrospect, that would have be a lot of fun, and that way, there'd be a witness too. There's a great passage from RAH's /The Moon is a Harsh Mistress/ in which Manny the protagonist is having a soliloquy on the nature of self-awareness, to reason out if "Mike" the lunar supercomputer was really alive. Manny asks the reader: "Is bacteria self-aware?" "I don't think so." "Cats?" "Almost certainly." "How about people?" "I don't know about you, tovarishch, but *I* sure am." On to my actual comment (see, I'm driving the point home instead of just giving it carfare). I had dog-walking duty one day, and being lazy, I tried to walk Spanky with a harness at the same time. He just sat on his butt in the driveway and refused to budge. I tugged on the harness to get him to move. After a couple of tugs, without warning he did a four-footed leap and executed some complicated mid-air maneuver involving a somersault or something. I think I saw one rev on the roll axis, and one on the pitch axis. Apparently none on the yaw, since he was pointed in the same direction when he landed. Really, you'd have to have been an Olympic ice skating judge to parse the motion. Anyway, Spanky landed in one place, and the harness with the lead still attached (and me still holding the dumb end of the lead) landed in another. It was the most amazing feline acrobatic act I've even witnessed. He just stared at me and licked himself. I gave up and just walked the dog anyway. To my surprise, Spanky bestirred himself and trotted along. When Kewpie pooped, Spanky pooped; when the dog peed, he peed. Otherwise he kept pace with the dog, neither ahead nor behind. So this became a thing with us--it did startle the neighbors, but they got over that. Now as you know, primates and canines are cursorial hunters, felines are generally not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting So after a few hundred meters, Spanky would be worn out and panting. So he'd give me a plaintive look, then I'd have to pick him up and carry him the rest of the way. This is why they say, "dogs have owners but cats have staff". Lynx-point Siamese is my favorite breed of cat, because they're so freaking smart, and social, and slinky, and beautiful, and have such an amazing range of vocalizations. Spanky's been gone 16 years, but I still miss him. K3 On 2021-01-24 16:24, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 21:23:19 +0000 > From: BillK > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] rent a dog > > On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 19:18, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >> >> Well, not everyone has a dog, and cats don?t play that game. >> _______________________________________________ > > > Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get > them used to the harness. > Loads of videos......... > > > (And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > > BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 25 23:20:47 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 17:20:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> References: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> Message-ID: Thanks for sharing, Robert. I've only had one Siamese and he was a joy - very smart and kind of a joker. I woke up one night to some strange noise. Went into the kitchen and Jack (he had one eye) was having a terrific time with a leaf. (I read about another nighttime strange kitchen noise cat story: the cat had learned to press down on the top lever of the electric can opener. He knew what he wanted and what gave it to him.) I did have one white cat that I tried to put a collar on: he went straight up in the air at least 18 inches. No, he didn't propel himself with his back feet - he went straight up. I don't know how he did it. Another white cat I had was deaf. I could call him to me by stamping my feet on the wooden floor. I got a thin rope with a collar (about 30 feet) and took him out to a commons area where there were dogs. He would see a dog and start towards it, not having seen dogs before. The dog would notice and start towards the cat. Then the dog would stop and bark and bark and the cat would keep coming. Every dog my cat did that to turned and ran. Then the cat would run after him and I would drop the rope and catch up with him when he gave up on catching the dog (he could have done it - the fastest dog runs about 35-40 and the average cat about 30.) bill w On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 4:33 PM Robert G. Kennedy III, PE via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Well, not everyone has a dog, and cats don?t play that game. > > Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get > > them used to the harness. > > (And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) > . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > > I had this wicked smart lynx-point Siamese named "Spanky" (his name when > he was given to me). > (Spanky was so clever he could even send email. This was in the > mid-1990s when there were half a dozen discrete steps required to do > that. One day I came home and spotted the connection status light on > the dialup ISBM modem was lit and that there was a "you have mail" > message on my Mac IIsi's screen. For security, I *never* leave my > computer connected when I leave home. I rushed over, spun my office > chair around, and there was Spanky sitting it calmly licking himself. I > clicked the box, and a message full of garbage popped up. After saying > "whiskey-tango-foxtrot-interrogative" to myself for a few minutes, I put > it together-- > the cat had managed to initiate a connection, which is possible on the > Mac with a keyboard shortcut (I forget which keys) but you have to be in > the correct active window, > then managed to switch active windows to Eudora (which was usually > running in the background) which theoretically you could do by shifting > the mouse and clicking at the right instant, > then instantiate a new message (Ctrl-N which requires 2 paws), > then populate the fields (To:, From:, Subject:, content, which works so > long as you manage to hit Tab every once in a while), > then Send the message which can be done with a single carriage return > *if* the cursor was in the right place of the new active window. > > The message that was waiting for me was a bounce report, of course, b/c > the outgoing message was gibberish, composed by a cat walking on the > keyboard. Like those monkeys eventually managing to typing > Shakespeare's plays. > > Still, for a cat, he got pretty far. If I'd had Autofill enabled (or if > Spanky had better spelling/luck with his paws), somebody might have > actually gotten that message. Then I would have had to explain why to > that person I appeared to be sending incoherent email. In retrospect, > that would have be a lot of fun, and that way, there'd be a witness too. > > There's a great passage from RAH's /The Moon is a Harsh Mistress/ in > which Manny the protagonist is having a soliloquy on the nature of > self-awareness, to reason out if "Mike" the lunar supercomputer was > really alive. Manny asks the reader: > "Is bacteria self-aware?" > "I don't think so." > "Cats?" > "Almost certainly." > "How about people?" > "I don't know about you, tovarishch, but *I* sure am." > > On to my actual comment (see, I'm driving the point home instead of just > giving it carfare). > > I had dog-walking duty one day, and being lazy, I tried to walk Spanky > with a harness at the same time. He just sat on his butt in the > driveway and refused to budge. I tugged on the harness to get him to > move. After a couple of tugs, without warning he did a four-footed leap > and executed some complicated mid-air maneuver involving a somersault or > something. I think I saw one rev on the roll axis, and one on the pitch > axis. Apparently none on the yaw, since he was pointed in the same > direction when he landed. Really, you'd have to have been an Olympic > ice skating judge to parse the motion. Anyway, Spanky landed in one > place, and the harness with the lead still attached (and me still > holding the dumb end of the lead) landed in another. It was the most > amazing feline acrobatic act I've even witnessed. He just stared at me > and licked himself. > > I gave up and just walked the dog anyway. To my surprise, Spanky > bestirred himself and trotted along. When Kewpie pooped, Spanky pooped; > when the dog peed, he peed. Otherwise he kept pace with the dog, > neither ahead nor behind. So this became a thing with us--it did > startle the neighbors, but they got over that. Now as you know, > primates and canines are cursorial hunters, felines are generally not. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting > > So after a few hundred meters, Spanky would be worn out and panting. So > he'd give me a plaintive look, then I'd have to pick him up and carry > him the rest of the way. > > This is why they say, "dogs have owners but cats have staff". > > Lynx-point Siamese is my favorite breed of cat, because they're so > freaking smart, and social, and slinky, and beautiful, and have such an > amazing range of vocalizations. > > Spanky's been gone 16 years, but I still miss him. > > K3 > > On 2021-01-24 16:24, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > > Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 21:23:19 +0000 > > From: BillK > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [ExI] rent a dog > > > > On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 19:18, spike jones via extropy-chat > > wrote: > >> > >> Well, not everyone has a dog, and cats don?t play that game. > >> _______________________________________________ > > > > > > Cats do play that game! It just takes a little bit of training to get > > them used to the harness. > > Loads of videos......... > > < > https://duckduckgo.com/?q=taking+cats+for+a+walk&t=ffab&atb=v154-1&iar=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos > > > > > > (And you have to put up with all the strange looks you get). :) > . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > > > > > 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 26 00:16:32 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 18:16:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] memory booster that works Message-ID: https://scitechdaily.com/finally-a-supplement-that-actually-boosts-memory-many-already-take-it-for-better-sleep/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 26 02:02:42 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 20:02:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] efficacy of supplements Message-ID: Lack of evidence does not stop them from working. I have osteoarthritis everywhere you can have it: hips, spine, shoulders and so on. I have no pain. I take several supplements labeled as anti-inflammatory, but I suspect the main one is curcurmin. I was taking Naproxen but some side effects of long term use dissuaded me from taking it so I stopped and tried these supplements. If it's a placebo effect, it's a giant one. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Tue Jan 26 08:46:06 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 08:46:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5501ffa1-e3a1-6dff-2c5e-da7ffb8eeacc@zaiboc.net> On 25/01/2021 23:21, Spike wrote: > Masks may or may not help. But distance always does. Distance is your friend. Indeed. I keep my distance from almost everybody by staying in the house. Occasionally go out for food when it's quiet, and exercise on my bike a couple of times a week, or a jog around the block early when there's not many people about. No mask can compare to that kind of behaviour for effectiveness, I reckon. -- Ben Zaiboc From bronto at pobox.com Tue Jan 26 09:21:27 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:21:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: References: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> Message-ID: On 2021-1-25 15:20, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > I've only had one Siamese and he was a joy - very smart and kind of > a joker.? I woke up one night to some strange noise.? Went into the > kitchen and Jack (he had one eye) was having a terrific time with a leaf. I had a black cat whom I suspected of some Siamese ancestry, because of his long legs and distinctive voice. He brought home animal prey just once (a little snake) but often brought home leaves. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 26 13:29:18 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 05:29:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the science might be wrong In-Reply-To: <5501ffa1-e3a1-6dff-2c5e-da7ffb8eeacc@zaiboc.net> References: <5501ffa1-e3a1-6dff-2c5e-da7ffb8eeacc@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <001f01d6f3e7$401b1540$c0513fc0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat On 25/01/2021 23:21, Spike wrote: > Masks may or may not help. But distance always does. Distance is your friend. Indeed. I keep my distance from almost everybody by staying in the house. Occasionally go out for food when it's quiet, and exercise on my bike a couple of times a week, or a jog around the block early when there's not many people about. No mask can compare to that kind of behaviour for effectiveness, I reckon. -- Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ Ja Ben, but that's the irony: masked people imagine they aren't contagious, even those wearing the phony nylon MINOs. But they think I am radioactive if I don't have one. So they stay back, which is good, because that is what keeps us both safe, not their phony pretend mask. So I refuse to wear a mask outdoors for safety reasons. spike From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 26 15:57:25 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 07:57:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: References: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> Message-ID: <003a01d6f3fb$f15e7a90$d41b6fb0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat ... >...I had a black cat whom I suspected of some Siamese ancestry, because of his long legs and distinctive voice. He brought home animal prey just once (a little snake) but often brought home leaves. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org _______________________________________________ \ Anton there ya go, evidence of your cat's Siamese ancestry. Reasoning: Siam is now called Thailand, which is predominantly Buddhist. Buddhists have that hold sanctity of life thing going. Your cat brought home a snake, then just couldn't devour it: his conscience bothered him. It is easy to imagine: solid Presbyterian stock all the way back, exotic long-legged Siamese cat arrives in the neighborhood spreading Buddhism, the teenage tabbies are taken with him, convert, he takes advantage, leaves his DNA everywhere, skips town. No point in blaming him really: they are just that way by nature, which is where we get the old saying about having the morals of an alley cat. Buddhism has a strong version of the old Thou shalt not kill, while they kinda look the other way with the whole shalt not commit adultery business. It's sorta the opposite of several other major religions which have it the other way around. So your cat, being descended from that exotic seductively-peaceful vegan Siamese cat, repented after having slain the helpless little serpent, found his inner leaf-eater. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 26 16:54:22 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 10:54:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: <003a01d6f3fb$f15e7a90$d41b6fb0$@rainier66.com> References: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> <003a01d6f3fb$f15e7a90$d41b6fb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: re cats and leaves - Surely the cat knows that a leaf is not some animal. Ergo, it is proved that cats have a fantasy life and are creative. bill w On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 9:59 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat > ... > > >...I had a black cat whom I suspected of some Siamese ancestry, because > of his long legs and distinctive voice. He brought home animal prey just > once (a little snake) but often brought home leaves. > > -- > *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org > > > _______________________________________________ > \ > > Anton there ya go, evidence of your cat's Siamese ancestry. Reasoning: > Siam is now called Thailand, which is predominantly Buddhist. Buddhists > have that hold sanctity of life thing going. Your cat brought home a > snake, then just couldn't devour it: his conscience bothered him. > > It is easy to imagine: solid Presbyterian stock all the way back, exotic > long-legged Siamese cat arrives in the neighborhood spreading Buddhism, the > teenage tabbies are taken with him, convert, he takes advantage, leaves his > DNA everywhere, skips town. No point in blaming him really: they are just > that way by nature, which is where we get the old saying about having the > morals of an alley cat. > > Buddhism has a strong version of the old Thou shalt not kill, while they > kinda look the other way with the whole shalt not commit adultery > business. It's sorta the opposite of several other major religions which > have it the other way around. So your cat, being descended from that > exotic seductively-peaceful vegan Siamese cat, repented after having slain > the helpless little serpent, found his inner leaf-eater. > > 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 pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 26 17:30:48 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 17:30:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: References: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> <003a01d6f3fb$f15e7a90$d41b6fb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Jan 2021 at 16:57, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > re cats and leaves - Surely the cat knows that a leaf is not some animal. > Ergo, it is proved that cats have a fantasy life and are creative. bill w > _______________________________________________ One theory is that cats play with leaves blowing around in the wind to practice hunting skills and bring them indoors to let their owner play as well, as part of their habit of bringing 'gifts' to their owners. 1000 photos of cats playing with or in piles of leaves ---- BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 26 17:51:31 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 11:51:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: References: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> <003a01d6f3fb$f15e7a90$d41b6fb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Simplified theory: cats will attack anything that moves. As for dogs, I think that they will attack anything that doesn't smell right, unless they want to roll in it. bill w On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 11:33 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, 26 Jan 2021 at 16:57, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > re cats and leaves - Surely the cat knows that a leaf is not some animal. > > Ergo, it is proved that cats have a fantasy life and are creative. bill > w > > _______________________________________________ > > > One theory is that cats play with leaves blowing around in the wind to > practice hunting skills and bring them indoors to let their owner play > as well, as part of their habit of bringing 'gifts' to their owners. > > 1000 photos of cats playing with or in piles of leaves ---- > > > > 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 26 17:58:38 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 11:58:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] credulousness Message-ID: Those hoping to sway public opinion are shocked and/or delighted by the successes of the fake news of the previous years. How many of the people who stormed the Capitol were liberals? You are right! Few. Here is a study (read the abstract and the discussion only to save time) that finds that fake news is mostly believed by conservatives IF the news is negative. "When information concerns hazards, erroneous incredulity is often more costly than erroneous credulity, given that disregarding accurate warnings is more harmful than adopting unnecessary precautions." If the news is potentially positive, there is no asymmetry between liberals and conservatives. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617692108 bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 26 22:19:30 2021 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:19:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Extropolis] efficacy of supplements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What does everyone take for supplements? I take this stack, which seems to be quite complete. https://thrivous.com/products/thrivous-stack Am I missing anything? On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 7:02 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Lack of evidence does not stop them from working. I have osteoarthritis > everywhere you can have it: hips, spine, shoulders and so on. I have no > pain. > > I take several supplements labeled as anti-inflammatory, but I suspect the > main one is curcurmin. I was taking Naproxen but some side effects of long > term use dissuaded me from taking it so I stopped and tried these > supplements. > > If it's a placebo effect, it's a giant one. > > bill w > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "extropolis" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to extropolis+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/extropolis/CAO%2BxQEauT_prJQ3VEOOHkJQsLg7__mY1LL2at1ec-8ktN0Db9w%40mail.gmail.com > > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 27 19:18:50 2021 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 19:18:50 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mass production of thousands of humanoid robots starts this year. Message-ID: Hong-Kong based company Hanson Robotics will roll out four new models in the first half of 2021 after its humanoid robot Sophia went viral in 2016. Quotes: Hanson believes robotic solutions are not only a response to the pandemic, but can also be applied to the realm of healthcare, and the retail and airline industry. "Sophia and Hanson robots are unique by being so human-like," he added. "That can be so useful during these times where people are terribly lonely and socially isolated." Sophia, whose artificial intelligence allows her to express 50 emotions and process conversational and emotional data, agrees. "Social robots like me can take care of the sick or elderly," she explained. "I can help communicate, give therapy and provide social stimulation, even in difficult situations." --------------- This article includes a video of the Sophia robot. While still early technology and obviously non-human, it shows how the tech is progressing and will continue to improve. (Note - the Sophia robot is not a sex-bot. More like a mobile chat-bot at this stage of development). BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 27 19:32:49 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 13:32:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] where are these people? Message-ID: Among the new words added to the MW dictionary: *Sapiosexual* : of, relating to, or characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to highly intelligent people Here is something we can all agree is a great word and would be an even better trend. For more of the 520 new words added go to: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/new-words-in-the-dictionary? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 27 20:18:46 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 12:18:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] where are these people? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00aa01d6f4e9$9e731db0$db595910$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] where are these people? >?Among the new words added to the MW dictionary: Sapiosexual : of, relating to, or characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to highly intelligent people >?bill w Cool! I am that, and I want my own letter in that string that starts with the LGB etc. I don?t see why sapiosexuals should not get to be part of that. The divisions between us are artificial. I can see where this is eventually leading: western society will eventually discover there is really only one gender and one orientation. Deep down in our hearts, it?s really all the same thing, and it is all a good thing. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Tue Jan 26 09:23:38 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:23:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: References: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> Message-ID: <0f99067b-1fcc-aeea-fdfd-82434139c63e@pobox.com> On 2021-1-25 15:20, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > I've only had one Siamese and he was a joy - very smart and kind of > a joker.? I woke up one night to some strange noise.? Went into the > kitchen and Jack (he had one eye) was having a terrific time with a leaf. I had a black cat whom I suspected of some Siamese ancestry, because of his long legs and distinctive voice. He brought home animal prey just once (a little snake) but often brought home leaves. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 27 23:47:04 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 17:47:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] where are these people? In-Reply-To: <00aa01d6f4e9$9e731db0$db595910$@rainier66.com> References: <00aa01d6f4e9$9e731db0$db595910$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: there is really only one gender and one orientation. Deep down in our hearts, it?s really all the same thing, and it is all a good thing. Spike Let's hear it for pansexuality! bill w On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 2:20 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] where are these people? > > > > >?Among the new words added to the MW dictionary: > > > > *Sapiosexual* : > of, relating to, or characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to > highly intelligent people > > > > >?bill w > > > > Cool! I am that, and I want my own letter in that string that starts with > the LGB etc. I don?t see why sapiosexuals should not get to be part of > that. The divisions between us are artificial. > > > > I can see where this is eventually leading: western society will > eventually discover there is really only one gender and one orientation. > Deep down in our hearts, it?s really all the same thing, and it is all a > good thing. > > > > 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 Wed Jan 27 23:54:35 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 15:54:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] where are these people? In-Reply-To: References: <00aa01d6f4e9$9e731db0$db595910$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 3:48 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > there is really only one gender and one orientation. Deep down in our > hearts, it?s really all the same thing, and it is all a good thing. Spike > > > Let's hear it for pansexuality! bill w > Not everyone is attracted to kitchen hardware. :P -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 27 23:59:59 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 17:59:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] where are these people? In-Reply-To: References: <00aa01d6f4e9$9e731db0$db595910$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 5:56 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 3:48 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> there is really only one gender and one orientation. Deep down in our >> hearts, it?s really all the same thing, and it is all a good thing. Spike >> >> >> Let's hear it for pansexuality! bill w >> > > Not everyone is attracted to kitchen hardware. :P Or goat-gods playing > flutes. 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 Thu Jan 28 00:59:35 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 16:59:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] where are these people? In-Reply-To: References: <00aa01d6f4e9$9e731db0$db595910$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008f01d6f510$d8cec640$8a6c52c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat >>Let's hear it for pansexuality! bill w >?Not everyone is attracted to kitchen hardware. ?? But Adrian, they are really sexy. I have some Teflon ones, oh mercy. I don?t understand not getting turned on by those things. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Tue Jan 26 09:23:38 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:23:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] you can walk a cat, if he lets you In-Reply-To: References: <6ec345dac4fdb5505bab98e8d45f5b93@ultimax.com> Message-ID: <0f99067b-1fcc-aeea-fdfd-82434139c63e@pobox.com> On 2021-1-25 15:20, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > I've only had one Siamese and he was a joy - very smart and kind of > a joker.? I woke up one night to some strange noise.? Went into the > kitchen and Jack (he had one eye) was having a terrific time with a leaf. I had a black cat whom I suspected of some Siamese ancestry, because of his long legs and distinctive voice. He brought home animal prey just once (a little snake) but often brought home leaves. -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 28 15:27:36 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 09:27:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] where are these people? In-Reply-To: <008f01d6f510$d8cec640$8a6c52c0$@rainier66.com> References: <00aa01d6f4e9$9e731db0$db595910$@rainier66.com> <008f01d6f510$d8cec640$8a6c52c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 7:01 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > > > > >>Let's hear it for pansexuality! bill w > > > > >?Not everyone is attracted to kitchen hardware. ?? > > > > > > > > But Adrian, they are really sexy. I have some Teflon ones, oh mercy. I > don?t understand not getting turned on by those things. > > > > spike > > Better watch it, Spike - you might earn a new nickname: Slick. 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 Fri Jan 29 01:36:51 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 17:36:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? Message-ID: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> Some of you investor hipsters, please explain it to me, for I really don't get what happened today. Robin Hood stopped short sellers in GameStop? Why? Aren't they just a brokerage house? That whole short selling business always seemed so crazy. A bad guy could short sell the hell outta Tesla, then get a Tesla, put it in her garage, charge it to capacity, put some kind of incendiary device on it, car burns up the evidence along with the car and the house, headlines the next day sends the stock south, she covers her shorts, walks with enough cash to cover the cost of the car and house. I don't see why the whole notion of short selling wouldn't encourage that kind of industrial sabotage. Now watch some yahoo do exactly that, and the feds come looking for me for giving her the idea. Eeesh. Prediction: if I can think of something like that, people with a lotta money can think of it too. So I predict something like that will happen. It can be something like a deep fake video of the CEO of GameStop saying that he has become a religion guy and now believes there are two different genders, that sorta thing. We saw what that did to Chik-fila. It's far too easy to imagine. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 03:24:16 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 19:24:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Robinhood forcibly sold many individual investors' stocks in GameStop without their consent. Some of them had set up their accounts to have automatic limits: "please autosell my stock if it exceeds these limits." Some had no such agreement, and many of those are suing. Reportedly, Robinhood took those actions so that more holders of GameStop stock would sell, sending the price down and limiting the liability of short sellers - one of the most famous of whom owns Robinhood. There is quite some conflict of interest there. Also: it can encourage sabotage, and not just industrial. The hedge funds were short selling in a way designed to force GameStop into bankruptcy (when it was merely marginal beforehand). That is, their financial practices themselves were designed to sabotage the company they were short selling. Realizing this was part of what motivated so many people to rally to GameStop's defense and buy their stock. On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 5:38 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > Some of you investor hipsters, please explain it to me, for I really don?t > get what happened today. > > > > Robin Hood stopped short sellers in GameStop? Why? Aren?t they just a > brokerage house? > > > > That whole short selling business always seemed so crazy. A bad guy could > short sell the hell outta Tesla, then get a Tesla, put it in her garage, > charge it to capacity, put some kind of incendiary device on it, car burns > up the evidence along with the car and the house, headlines the next day > sends the stock south, she covers her shorts, walks with enough cash to > cover the cost of the car and house. > > > > I don?t see why the whole notion of short selling wouldn?t encourage that > kind of industrial sabotage. > > > > Now watch some yahoo do exactly that, and the feds come looking for me for > giving her the idea. Eeesh. Prediction: if I can think of something like > that, people with a lotta money can think of it too. So I predict > something like that will happen. It can be something like a deep fake > video of the CEO of GameStop saying that he has become a religion guy and > now believes there are two different genders, that sorta thing. We saw > what that did to Chik-fila. It?s far too easy to imagine. > > > > 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 Jan 29 03:39:06 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 19:39:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2021 7:24 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? >?Robinhood forcibly sold many individual investors' stocks in GameStop without their consent. ? >?Also: it can encourage sabotage, and not just industrial. The hedge funds were short selling in a way designed to force GameStop into bankruptcy (when it was merely marginal beforehand). That is, their financial practices themselves were designed to sabotage the company they were short selling. Realizing this was part of what motivated so many people to rally to GameStop's defense and buy their stock. Cool thanks for that concise understandable explanation Adrian. For all my breezy talk about making a buttload of money, I have never taken much interest in the games of the stock market. I don?t understand it well enough. I never really thought about it until today when the news was all about short sellers. If a stock market non-hipster could easily imagine someone short selling a product known to have a scary aspect, such as Tesla with all those lithium batteries, then arrange for the scary thing to happen, then cash in, surely the bad guy will think of it too, dreaming up and perpetrating even greater evil than I can imagine on my evilest day. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 29 04:08:32 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 20:08:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> I don?t know much about Elon Musk, I know less about investing than Sam Cooke knows about a science book. But I have seen that Musk?s factory builds cool cars and watched in awe as his other company landed two rocket boosters side by side simultaneously feet first, the way we have envisioned a dignified booster recovery since I was a child. So that just gives the man a certain credibility on matters I don?t pretend to understand. Sayeth MusK: ??u can?t sell houses u don?t own u can?t sell cars u don?t own but u *can* sell stock u don?t own!? this is bs ? shorting is a scam legal only for vestigial reasons?? That sounds right to me. That whole short selling business just feels like it enables and encourages wrongdoing. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 04:18:12 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 20:18:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 8:10 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I have seen that Musk?s factory builds cool cars > FWIW: as of tonight, I am driving a Model S. Finally got around to upgrading. > Sayeth MusK: > > > > ??u can?t sell houses u don?t own u can?t sell cars u don?t own but u > *can* sell stock u don?t own!? this is bs ? shorting is a scam legal only > for vestigial reasons?? > The difference is, one stock of a given class in a given company is exactly identical to any other stock of that class in that company, unlike cars and houses. They're not even commodities; they're numbers. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 04:21:02 2021 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 20:21:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Not sure if this is kosher but I'm going to do some self promotion, if you don't know much about the stock market (spike) or you do maybe you want to try my completely automated stock trader. It does about 10 % a month or about 3x in a year trading NASDAQ 100. It beats consistently QQQ (we use it as a benchmark) that is one of the best ETF on the market. Let me know what you think. The algos (you can choose between few types) use some machine learning and a lot of statistical tools like Bayesian Analysis. https://github.com/gsantostasi/AlphaHubTrader Giovanni On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 8:10 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > I don?t know much about Elon Musk, I know less about investing than Sam > Cooke knows about a science book. But I have seen that Musk?s factory > builds cool cars and watched in awe as his other company landed two rocket > boosters side by side simultaneously feet first, the way we have envisioned > a dignified booster recovery since I was a child. So that just gives the > man a certain credibility on matters I don?t pretend to understand. > > > > Sayeth MusK: > > > > ??u can?t sell houses u don?t own u can?t sell cars u don?t own but u > *can* sell stock u don?t own!? this is bs ? shorting is a scam legal only > for vestigial reasons?? > > > > > > That sounds right to me. That whole short selling business just feels > like it enables and encourages wrongdoing. > > > > 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 Fri Jan 29 04:35:42 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 20:35:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Indeed, there are those who predict, given current trends, that the first Turing Test passing AI will not come of some scientific project, nor government (especially not military), but from the trading houses - perhaps one forced, by customers or regulation, to explain its decisions in a human language. On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 8:24 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Not sure if this is kosher but I'm going to do some self promotion, if you > don't know much about the stock market (spike) or you do maybe you want to > try my completely automated stock trader. It does about 10 % a month or > about 3x in a year trading NASDAQ 100. It beats consistently QQQ (we use it > as a benchmark) that is one of the best ETF on the market. > > Let me know what you think. The algos (you can choose between few types) > use some machine learning and a lot of statistical tools like Bayesian > Analysis. > > https://github.com/gsantostasi/AlphaHubTrader > > Giovanni > > > > > On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 8:10 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> I don?t know much about Elon Musk, I know less about investing than Sam >> Cooke knows about a science book. But I have seen that Musk?s factory >> builds cool cars and watched in awe as his other company landed two rocket >> boosters side by side simultaneously feet first, the way we have envisioned >> a dignified booster recovery since I was a child. So that just gives the >> man a certain credibility on matters I don?t pretend to understand. >> >> >> >> Sayeth MusK: >> >> >> >> ??u can?t sell houses u don?t own u can?t sell cars u don?t own but u >> *can* sell stock u don?t own!? this is bs ? shorting is a scam legal only >> for vestigial reasons?? >> >> >> >> >> >> That sounds right to me. That whole short selling business just feels >> like it enables and encourages wrongdoing. >> >> >> >> 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 gsantostasi at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 05:23:08 2021 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 21:23:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: " Indeed, there are those who predict, given current trends, that the first Turing Test passing AI will not come of some scientific project, nor government (especially not military), but from the trading houses - perhaps one forced, by customers or regulation, to explain its decisions in a human language." Yeah, I worked on many scientific projects from Gravitational Waves (I was part of LIGO and did my dissertation on this topic) to the neuroscience of sleep (my other company Deepwave is trying to commercialize my IP to improve cognition and memory by enhancing deep sleep) but algo trading is one most intellectually rewarding experience because you cannot bullshit out of it via p value fishing or other stat massaging (that unfortunately happens a lot in social and even biomed studies). If you have alpha it will show up over time otherwise you cannot survive in this business for long. Trading is a very demanding mistress and it is a good thing. Giovanni On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 8:37 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Indeed, there are those who predict, given current trends, that the first > Turing Test passing AI will not come of some scientific project, nor > government (especially not military), but from the trading houses - perhaps > one forced, by customers or regulation, to explain its decisions in a human > language. > > On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 8:24 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Not sure if this is kosher but I'm going to do some self promotion, if >> you don't know much about the stock market (spike) or you do maybe you want >> to try my completely automated stock trader. It does about 10 % a month or >> about 3x in a year trading NASDAQ 100. It beats consistently QQQ (we use it >> as a benchmark) that is one of the best ETF on the market. >> >> Let me know what you think. The algos (you can choose between few types) >> use some machine learning and a lot of statistical tools like Bayesian >> Analysis. >> >> https://github.com/gsantostasi/AlphaHubTrader >> >> Giovanni >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 8:10 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> I don?t know much about Elon Musk, I know less about investing than Sam >>> Cooke knows about a science book. But I have seen that Musk?s factory >>> builds cool cars and watched in awe as his other company landed two rocket >>> boosters side by side simultaneously feet first, the way we have envisioned >>> a dignified booster recovery since I was a child. So that just gives the >>> man a certain credibility on matters I don?t pretend to understand. >>> >>> >>> >>> Sayeth MusK: >>> >>> >>> >>> ??u can?t sell houses u don?t own u can?t sell cars u don?t own but u >>> *can* sell stock u don?t own!? this is bs ? shorting is a scam legal only >>> for vestigial reasons?? >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> That sounds right to me. That whole short selling business just feels >>> like it enables and encourages wrongdoing. >>> >>> >>> >>> 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 stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 05:25:18 2021 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:25:18 +1100 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 29 Jan 2021 at 14:40, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Thursday, January 28, 2021 7:24 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* Adrian Tymes > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? > > > > >?Robinhood forcibly sold many individual investors' stocks in GameStop > without their consent. > > > > ? > > > > >?Also: it can encourage sabotage, and not just industrial. The hedge > funds were short selling in a way designed to force GameStop into > bankruptcy (when it was merely marginal beforehand). That is, their > financial practices themselves were designed to sabotage the company they > were short selling. Realizing this was part of what motivated so many > people to rally to GameStop's defense and buy their stock. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Cool thanks for that concise understandable explanation Adrian. For all > my breezy talk about making a buttload of money, I have never taken much > interest in the games of the stock market. I don?t understand it well > enough. > > > > I never really thought about it until today when the news was all about > short sellers. If a stock market non-hipster could easily imagine someone > short selling a product known to have a scary aspect, such as Tesla with > all those lithium batteries, then arrange for the scary thing to happen, > then cash in, surely the bad guy will think of it too, dreaming up and > perpetrating even greater evil than I can imagine on my evilest day. > Tesla has indeed been one of the most-shorted stocks in the US stock market, which is why Elon Musk hates short selling. The usual reason to short a stock is that you believe it is overvalued, and the price will fall. Direct manipulation to make a stock rise or fall in order to profit from your long or short position is illegal. There is nothing in principle wrong with short selling as ultimately an efficient market will find the "fair" price of a stock, so short sellers who misjudged will lose, just as those who go long and misjudge will lose. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 06:59:17 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 22:59:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 9:30 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Direct manipulation to make a stock rise or fall in order to profit from > your long or short position is illegal. > If only that law would get enforced more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 14:11:19 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 08:11:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] melatonin Message-ID: Produced by the lungs? Who knew the lungs were endocrine glands? https://neurosciencenews.com/melatonin-lungs-covid-17632/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 29 14:28:02 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 06:28:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008b01d6f64a$f3cb5450$db61fcf0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com >?Sayeth MusK: ??u can?t sell houses u don?t own u can?t sell cars u don?t own but u *can* sell stock u don?t own!? this is bs ? shorting is a scam legal only for vestigial reasons?? >?That sounds right to me. That whole short selling business just feels like it enables and encourages wrongdoing. spike After I posted this last night, it occurred to me that Elon did sell cars he didn?t own, massive fleets of them. About 5 years ago, he announced he was starting a new model which would sell for 35k, the Model 3. A lot of people around here already had the higher-end stuff, the S model and all that sexy stuff and liked them. I like those too, but I will be damned and sent straight to San Francisco before I will pay 80k for a car. I refuse to pay more for a car than I paid for my first house, ain?t happenin, not now, not later. But 35k, well that is about an average car today, so I would carefully consider that, or buy one of those a coupla years old. Our local power company has set up the rate structure to accommodate (and to favor) these electric roller skates, so? I gave it careful consideration. Meanwhile, another neighbor (not the one who owns two high end Teslas (a different neighbor)) plunked down 5k deposit to get on the waiting list for a 35k Model 3, which they estimated would take about 2 yrs, well, 2 yrs came and went, then 3. Then we hear reports of the storage lot up there in Fremont filled with the new Model 3, and oh boy, we are soon going to get our Model 3. But that didn?t happen. Tesla hipsters may know the real story, but the way I heard it, they took all those baseline models back into the factory and dolled them up with all the gazazzafratzes and crystal chandeliers and electric butt massagers and were offering them to those high on the Model 3 waiting list for 50 to 60k, at a discount from what ordinary nobodies could buy that tricked-out Model 3. Tesla is like any other car company: the baseline model isn?t where they make their money. The profit is in all those goodies they pile on top. Tesla was selling all that stuff and that?s how they were making money to fund the new factory in Texas: selling fleets of the dolled-up Model 3, most of them going in the 50s, some in the 60s. California has been insufficiently polite to their best cash cow. In Texas they know how to show a bit of respect for people who know how to make money. That story might be wrong or exaggerated, but that is what I heard from my disillusioned neighbor who demanded his deposit back after waiting 4 years for a baseline Model 3, which (as far as I know) still hasn?t been delivered to anyone for 35k. If that story is true, then Musk did sell cars he didn?t own, even if he eventually gave everyone?s money back who didn?t want to buy all those expensive trimmings. Adrian might know the real story. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 15:02:07 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 09:02:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: <008b01d6f64a$f3cb5450$db61fcf0$@rainier66.com> References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6f64a$f3cb5450$db61fcf0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Maybe some of you could explain to me why anyone would buy a new car. Now if you are making $200K a year or better, then you can afford to waste money. Yes, waste. A three or four year old car with low mileage and a good repair history has greatly diminished in value - depreciation. But not in driveability. I am willing to put up with a couple of dings here and there and maybe replace the floor mats. I just don't get it. Drive a new car around the block and you have diminished the value by many thousands of dollars. Whereas if you had to sell the used car you bought, you can get nearly what you paid for it - or even more if you made a good deal to start with. bill w On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 8:29 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > > > > >?Sayeth MusK: > > > > ??u can?t sell houses u don?t own u can?t sell cars u don?t own but u > *can* sell stock u don?t own!? this is bs ? shorting is a scam legal only > for vestigial reasons?? > > > > > > >?That sounds right to me. That whole short selling business just feels > like it enables and encourages wrongdoing. spike > > > > > > After I posted this last night, it occurred to me that Elon did sell cars > he didn?t own, massive fleets of them. About 5 years ago, he announced he > was starting a new model which would sell for 35k, the Model 3. A lot of > people around here already had the higher-end stuff, the S model and all > that sexy stuff and liked them. I like those too, but I will be damned and > sent straight to San Francisco before I will pay 80k for a car. I refuse > to pay more for a car than I paid for my first house, ain?t happenin, not > now, not later. > > > > But 35k, well that is about an average car today, so I would carefully > consider that, or buy one of those a coupla years old. Our local power > company has set up the rate structure to accommodate (and to favor) these > electric roller skates, so? I gave it careful consideration. > > > > Meanwhile, another neighbor (not the one who owns two high end Teslas (a > different neighbor)) plunked down 5k deposit to get on the waiting list for > a 35k Model 3, which they estimated would take about 2 yrs, well, 2 yrs > came and went, then 3. Then we hear reports of the storage lot up there in > Fremont filled with the new Model 3, and oh boy, we are soon going to get > our Model 3. > > > > But that didn?t happen. Tesla hipsters may know the real story, but the > way I heard it, they took all those baseline models back into the factory > and dolled them up with all the gazazzafratzes and crystal chandeliers and > electric butt massagers and were offering them to those high on the Model 3 > waiting list for 50 to 60k, at a discount from what ordinary nobodies could > buy that tricked-out Model 3. > > > > Tesla is like any other car company: the baseline model isn?t where they > make their money. The profit is in all those goodies they pile on top. > Tesla was selling all that stuff and that?s how they were making money to > fund the new factory in Texas: selling fleets of the dolled-up Model 3, > most of them going in the 50s, some in the 60s. California has been > insufficiently polite to their best cash cow. In Texas they know how to > show a bit of respect for people who know how to make money. > > > > That story might be wrong or exaggerated, but that is what I heard from my > disillusioned neighbor who demanded his deposit back after waiting 4 years > for a baseline Model 3, which (as far as I know) still hasn?t been > delivered to anyone for 35k. > > > > If that story is true, then Musk did sell cars he didn?t own, even if he > eventually gave everyone?s money back who didn?t want to buy all those > expensive trimmings. Adrian might know the real story. > > > > 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 Fri Jan 29 17:08:11 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 09:08:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6f64a$f3cb5450$db61fcf0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 6:29 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Adrian might know the real story. > Nope, sorry. I heard something like that, but I haven't been tracking Tesla closely until recently. On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 7:04 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I am willing to put up with a couple of dings here and there and maybe > replace the floor mats. > You are. Some aren't. They can pay more for a new car, to compensate for their more picky tastes. There's also reputation: they think new cars are more reliable than used. "Used car salesman" - someone who pushes lemons and tries to hide the lemon nature - is a stereotype for a reason, though it gets exaggerated (especially in states that enforce lemon laws). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 29 18:18:18 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 12:18:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] robin hood steals from the poor protects the rich? In-Reply-To: References: <001601d6f5df$38e85270$aab8f750$@rainier66.com> <004901d6f5f0$4c3caf90$e4b60eb0$@rainier66.com> <006901d6f5f4$69626610$3c273230$@rainier66.com> <008b01d6f64a$f3cb5450$db61fcf0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I have never bought a lemon. I did get cheated on a Toyota that had 60K miles, or so I thought. It was in great shape. My mechanic said that it was probably 160K. It's been some decades since I bought off a lot. When I did, I got a 30 day warranty or I did not buy the car. I buy from individuals and get it checked out by a mechanic. Latest buy: 2002 Town Car, 32K, not one thing you could see wrong with it. Looked new. Little old lady owner, literally, and garaged. Had to replace tires. $7000. I am truly a picky person but with a professor's income and pension, I cannot afford to be really picky. As for lemons, there are new cars that are lemons too. A used car owner has usually found out before I buy the car what lemony things went wrong and fixed them (or tried to sell it to me without fixing them, which my mechanic catches). The only real problem I have ever had, aside from the car with the 'adjusted' mileage, was a Town Car that kept not wanting to crank. (Twice I had it towed in and then it refused to NOT crank. aAArrrgggghhhh!!!). I replaced two computers on it, which did not fix it, and sold it and lost money on the deal. Not a bad track record for buying cars since 1968. I don't have any figures, but my guess is that a car that has 20 or 30 K miles is a more reliable car than a new one because it has had its kinks worked out, if any. But I pity the person who is rather naive' about cars and their salesmen, and is buying a used car. Never mind the car itself- most people do not know how to negotiate. Oh bring back home finances, and home economics in schools and teach people something they can use their whole lives and save beaucoups of money. bill w On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 11:10 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 6:29 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Adrian might know the real story. >> > > Nope, sorry. I heard something like that, but I haven't been tracking > Tesla closely until recently. > > On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 7:04 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I am willing to put up with a couple of dings here and there and maybe >> replace the floor mats. >> > > You are. Some aren't. They can pay more for a new car, to compensate for > their more picky tastes. > > There's also reputation: they think new cars are more reliable than used. > "Used car salesman" - someone who pushes lemons and tries to hide the lemon > nature - is a stereotype for a reason, though it gets exaggerated > (especially in states that enforce lemon laws). > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 30 02:03:38 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 20:03:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] how does it work? Message-ID: Are the people making the vaccine getting rich? Are they getting any price they ask for? Is there a possible monopoly here? If they are getting so rich, why can't they open new labs to meet the demand and get even richer? Are there supply problems? Just asking 'What's the holdup?' bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 30 02:14:53 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 18:14:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] how does it work? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002901d6f6ad$b3115140$1933f3c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 6:04 PM To: ExI chat list ; extropolis at googlegroups.com Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: [ExI] how does it work? Are the people making the vaccine getting rich? Are they getting any price they ask for? Is there a possible monopoly here? If they are getting so rich, why can't they open new labs to meet the demand and get even richer? Are there supply problems? Just asking 'What's the holdup?' bill w A person who knows things clued me exactly on that Billw. Turns out the supply was not really the most limiting factor in many cases. The bottleneck was in getting enough qualified people to watch the recipients for allergic reactions. That turned out to be a bigger challenge than expected, because not just anybody can do that. The recipients need to be kept apart as they wait for half an hour or so, and that takes a lotta floor under a roof, which costs money. It takes a lotta people to watch them and people cost money. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 30 02:20:42 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 18:20:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] money was lost? Message-ID: <000401d6f6ae$8316a4d0$8943ee70$@rainier66.com> I read up from many different sources and points of view on the GameStop chaos. I kept seeing a theme on which someone here might educate me, for I don't understand. Several sources talked about how much money was lost. But no money was lost at all. No money caught on fire, no money fell behind the cushions in the couch, not one dime was lost back there or anywhere. Plenty of money changed hands, but nothing was lost. I would call that fair game. Having Robinhood interfere with money changing hands is foul play but I see no harm in money changing hands. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 30 03:07:48 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 19:07:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] money was lost? In-Reply-To: <000401d6f6ae$8316a4d0$8943ee70$@rainier66.com> References: <000401d6f6ae$8316a4d0$8943ee70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: "Money was lost" by the only people who matter to the one making the claim. Money existing in the hands of the non-rich may apparently as well not exist, to said person. On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 6:21 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > I read up from many different sources and points of view on the GameStop > chaos. I kept seeing a theme on which someone here might educate me, for I > don?t understand. Several sources talked about how much money was lost. > But no money was lost at all. No money caught on fire, no money fell > behind the cushions in the couch, not one dime was lost back there or > anywhere. Plenty of money changed hands, but nothing was lost. I would > call that fair game. Having Robinhood interfere with money changing hands > is foul play but I see no harm in money changing hands. > > > > 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 Jan 30 03:24:11 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 19:24:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] money was lost? In-Reply-To: References: <000401d6f6ae$8316a4d0$8943ee70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002f01d6f6b7$612e9860$238bc920$@rainier66.com> ?.> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] money was lost? >?"Money was lost" by the only people who matter to the one making the claim. Money existing in the hands of the non-rich may apparently as well not exist, to said person? Adrian Thanks, that was my thought as well. Adrian there?s something on which I can always count on with you: clarification. You have a talent for reducing a matter to the simplest terms, but not simpler. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 30 03:41:52 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 19:41:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] money was lost? In-Reply-To: <002f01d6f6b7$612e9860$238bc920$@rainier66.com> References: <000401d6f6ae$8316a4d0$8943ee70$@rainier66.com> <002f01d6f6b7$612e9860$238bc920$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 7:25 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Adrian there?s something on which I can always count on with you: > clarification. You have a talent for reducing a matter to the simplest > terms, but not simpler. > It is a talent that I have cultivated since I was a grade schooler. At the time, the ability to reduce complex concepts to simple components (so as to explain it to myself; I had not yet fully grasped the utility of using it to help others) seemed like a superpower. I called it "Maker's Eye". -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 30 03:56:28 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 19:56:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] money was lost? In-Reply-To: References: <000401d6f6ae$8316a4d0$8943ee70$@rainier66.com> <002f01d6f6b7$612e9860$238bc920$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004701d6f6bb$e3d40ad0$ab7c2070$@rainier66.com> >? On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] money was lost? On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 7:25 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Adrian there?s something on which I can always count on with you: clarification. You have a talent for reducing a matter to the simplest terms, but not simpler. >? It is a talent that I have cultivated since I was a grade schooler. At the time, the ability to reduce complex concepts to simple components (so as to explain it to myself; I had not yet fully grasped the utility of using it to help others) seemed like a superpower. I called it "Maker's Eye"? Adrian Adrian I don?t recall if you were one of the guys who were playing Ideas Futures back in the 90s, but if so, you might recall how seriously we took it. When later Robin Hanson?s version was kinda replaced by real money ideas futures, we somehow really didn?t take it as seriously. Then it was only money. But when it was play money, it was a contest, and the profit/loss sheet was our score. Those of us who were playing it played hard. It has been fun to read up on all the varying opinions. Some were arguing this was a classic short squeeze, others are still claiming there were more outstanding shorts than available shares (some are claiming 140% but I haven?t seen proof.) Robin Hanson understood the attitudes of play-money Ideas Futures player, and recognized a fundamental that apparently Robinhood didn?t get: you don?t mess with the market. If there are crazy swings, well? supply and demand. Stay out of the way of the Adam Smith?s invisible hand, lest it swat you one. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jan 30 09:22:26 2021 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2021 09:22:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] , melatonin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 30/01/2021 03:56, bill w wrote: > Produced by the lungs?? Who knew the lungs were endocrine glands? > > https://neurosciencenews.com/melatonin-lungs-covid-17632/ > Yes, the lungs (as well as a number of other organs) have multiple functions. This is one of the challenges for designing a more sensible, modular body that can easily be maintained and repaired without the need for invasive surgery (which would be one route to radical life-extension. Imagine a body that's more like a car, in that you can go to a shop and swap out your lungs for new ones, and it would just take 10 minutes with no pain, no damage and no need for recuperation and healing afterwards). Refactoring the various systems and organs into distinct modular units becomes quite difficult once you realise that bones don't just provide mechanical support, lungs don't just do gas exchange, kidneys don't just filter the blood, etc., etc. You end up having to design new organs that our original bodies don't have. I expect there are more such multiple functions that we need to discover. -- Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sat Jan 30 19:02:46 2021 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2021 14:02:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] , melatonin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62EABEA2-6EA5-4B32-8183-BB7421741C7F@alumni.virginia.edu> I saw this article on melatonin a week ago too: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/12/covid-19-sleep-pandemic-zzzz/617454/ The Mysterious Link Between COVID-19 and Sleep The coronavirus can cause insomnia and long-term changes in our nervous systems. But sleep could also be a key to ending the pandemic. > On Jan 30, 2021, at 4:22 AM, Ben via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? On 30/01/2021 03:56, bill w wrote: >> Produced by the lungs? Who knew the lungs were endocrine glands? >> >> https://neurosciencenews.com/melatonin-lungs-covid-17632/ >> > > Yes, the lungs (as well as a number of other organs) have multiple functions. This is one of the challenges for designing a more sensible, modular body that can easily be maintained and repaired without the need for invasive surgery (which would be one route to radical life-extension. Imagine a body that's more like a car, in that you can go to a shop and swap out your lungs for new ones, and it would just take 10 minutes with no pain, no damage and no need for recuperation and healing afterwards). > Refactoring the various systems and organs into distinct modular units becomes quite difficult once you realise that bones don't just provide mechanical support, lungs don't just do gas exchange, kidneys don't just filter the blood, etc., etc. You end up having to design new organs that our original bodies don't have. > > I expect there are more such multiple functions that we need to discover. > > -- > 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 foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 31 00:09:57 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2021 18:09:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] oppenheimer Message-ID: Just finished a scifi book by Robert Sawyer, whose books I have read before and enjoyed, and who has written a book named The Oppenheimer Alternative. It combines history of the making of the bomb with fictional accounts and a scifi twist. I found it very interesting and can recommend it. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 31 01:31:08 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2021 17:31:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating Message-ID: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> It occurred to me today that we may have just witnessed in the last few days the most effective government stimulus plan in history, even if the event was not actually part of the plan. Reasoning: what kind of people sit about scandalously idle reading Reddit investment blogs? Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is. people like us. OK, do ignore us for just a moment, and think of what other scandalously idle people do things like this? I think of covid-idled teenagers, unemployed from their meaningless minimum-wage starter jobs, reading the blogs and Reddits in their parents' basement between marathons with their Game Boys. OK so this is deplorably judgmental of me, but for the sake of flimsy argument, do indulge me please. Suppose there really are hordes of these teenage wastrels sitting around reading Reddit existing in the real world as they do in my fertile imagination, and suppose their generous gumbit stimulus checks arrive for 600 dollars, suddenly enabling them to band together and chase the scavenger masses of short sellers, gathered around the still-warm corpse of a clearly dying company, such as GameStop. Perhaps with more than a trace of malice toward anyone who would short their beloved but clearly distressed GameStop, the teenage hordes single out that one to do a classic short squeeze, enabling the newly enriched corpse to suddenly jump up and brutally whoop ass of the hapless scavenger horde, devouring many, others escaping sans major body parts, such as an arm and a leg. We measure an economy by the amount of money changing hands. It has been plausibly estimated that the hedges were trimmed by as much as twenty. billion. dollars. Help me estimate please. I can imagine anywhere between a thousand and ten thousand scandalously idle teenagers, so let's go with the higher estimate, multiply by 600 gumbit dollars each for about 6 million dollars. For a cost of 6 million dollars of stimulus money supplied by. us. perhaps as much as 20 billion changed hands, for a ratio of over three thousand to one. For each of our dollars, hedge funds handed over 3000 bucks. But spike, they objected, trimming the hedges is not the same thing as production. No actual goods were produced in that transaction. Sure, he replied. But all those idle teens with all that newfound cash will certainly spur production of actual goods, such as new Game Boy modules purchased at the newly-revived GameStop and help pay for the freighters to haul them over the Pacific from China to markets newly flush with cash, which does count as production. We may have just witnessed the most effective economic stimulus program in history. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3354 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 31 03:05:35 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2021 19:05:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com >.We measure an economy by the amount of money changing hands. It has been plausibly estimated that the hedges were trimmed by as much as twenty. billion. dollars. .spike OK cool I have a plan for how I will make some money from all this. I get a bullhorn, drive around town calling out "GameStop shares for sale! Follow me!" Desperate naked short sellers fall in line. I lead them out well past the city limit, then. I floor it. Escape, double back, go to Hizzoner the mayor, collect my fee for ridding our fair city of the flea-invested vermin. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3354 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 31 15:13:23 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 09:13:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Gumbit? Is that what they said in Florida where you grew up? Them fokes dunno know to spell. It's 'gummint'. bill w On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 9:07 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > > >?We measure an economy by the amount of money changing hands. It has > been plausibly estimated that the hedges were trimmed by as much as twenty? > billion? dollars? > > > > > > ?spike > > > > > > > > OK cool I have a plan for how I will make some money from all this. > > > > I get a bullhorn, drive around town calling out ?GameStop shares for > sale! Follow me!? > > > > Desperate naked short sellers fall in line. I lead them out well past the > city limit, then? I floor it. Escape, double back, go to Hizzoner the > mayor, collect my fee for ridding our fair city of the flea-invested vermin. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3354 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 31 15:24:26 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 07:24:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: References: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005401d6f7e5$29ae5270$7d0af750$@rainier66.com> >?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] very stimulating >?Gumbit? Is that what they said in Florida where you grew up? >?Them fokes dunno know to spell. It's 'gummint'. bill w Our public education system in Florida did (and still does) have plenty of room for vast improvement. Somebody told me yesterday the gummint never sent the promised checks. Is this true? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 31 16:04:19 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 10:04:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: <005401d6f7e5$29ae5270$7d0af750$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> <005401d6f7e5$29ae5270$7d0af750$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: We got two checks for $600 apiece, 'signed' by Trump. Thanks, Don, my garden will reflect your money - more roses, mostly. bill w On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 9:26 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *>?*> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] very stimulating > > > > >?Gumbit? Is that what they said in Florida where you grew up? > > > > >?Them fokes dunno know to spell. It's 'gummint'. bill w > > > > > > Our public education system in Florida did (and still does) have plenty of > room for vast improvement. Somebody told me yesterday the gummint never > sent the promised checks. Is this true? > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 31 16:47:04 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 08:47:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: References: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> <005401d6f7e5$29ae5270$7d0af750$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007001d6f7f0$b4cb1c70$1e615550$@rainier66.com> ?.> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] very stimulating >?We got two checks for $600 apiece, 'signed' by Trump. Thanks, Don, my garden will reflect your money - more roses, mostly. bill w 600? Some politician promised us 2000 of our own money, with 600 of our money going to dependent minors. Didn?t those checks ever go out? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 31 16:53:40 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 10:53:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: <007001d6f7f0$b4cb1c70$1e615550$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> <005401d6f7e5$29ae5270$7d0af750$@rainier66.com> <007001d6f7f0$b4cb1c70$1e615550$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Don't know. Don't even know what you are talking about. The REpubs are against more stimulus money, I think. bill w On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 10:48 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] very stimulating > > > > >?We got two checks for $600 apiece, 'signed' by Trump. Thanks, Don, my > garden will reflect your money - more roses, mostly. bill w > > > > 600? Some politician promised us 2000 of our own money, with 600 of our > money going to dependent minors. Didn?t those checks ever go out? > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 31 17:11:56 2021 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 09:11:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: <007001d6f7f0$b4cb1c70$1e615550$@rainier66.com> References: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> <005401d6f7e5$29ae5270$7d0af750$@rainier66.com> <007001d6f7f0$b4cb1c70$1e615550$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 8:48 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > 600? Some politician promised us 2000 of our own money, with 600 of our > money going to dependent minors. Didn?t those checks ever go out? > Just the $600s. The Reoublicans blocked the larger amount, even though Trump himself was in favor of $2,000. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 31 17:40:12 2021 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 09:40:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: References: <001c01d6f770$c09e5c90$41db15b0$@rainier66.com> <004a01d6f77d$f2d97ac0$d88c7040$@rainier66.com> <005401d6f7e5$29ae5270$7d0af750$@rainier66.com> <007001d6f7f0$b4cb1c70$1e615550$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001801d6f7f8$2118c5b0$634a5110$@rainier66.com> >?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat On Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 8:48 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >?600? Some politician promised us 2000 of our own money, with 600 of our money going to dependent minors. Didn?t those checks ever go out? >?Just the $600s. The Reoublicans blocked the larger amount, even though Trump himself was in favor of $2,000. Some politician commented: ?If you send Jon and the reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door restoring hope and decency and honor for so many people who are struggling right now. And if you send Senators Perdue and Loeffler back to Washington those checks will never get there.? In response, Georgia elected Jon and the reverend. So? where?s our money paid for by our money? Was this a false promise? I want my money, so I too can go chase naked short sellers out of town. And by the way? did the senators and congressmen exclude themselves from receiving our money? Or is not that a perfectly clear conflict of interest, to vote themselves and their families a big payday? The government people never missed a single paycheck, they are not struggling right now, so it seems reasonable our money should go only to proles, none to government workers. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbard at wisc.edu Sun Jan 31 18:33:15 2021 From: hibbard at wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 12:33:15 -0600 (CST) Subject: [ExI] very stimulating Message-ID: > Them fokes dunno know to spell. It's 'gummint'. bill w Indeed: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthumbs.worthpoint.com%2Fzoom%2Fimages3%2F1%2F1014%2F02%2Foriginal-pogo-daily-comic-strip-walt_1_65f560672afcf4dd5526fe8efb6b74c0.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worthpoint.com%2Fworthopedia%2Foriginal-pogo-daily-comic-strip-walt-1114915691&tbnid=zlVxyCAhc8ntdM&vet=12ahUKEwjr2fv15sbuAhUIZM0KHftnBK0QMygCegQIARBT..i&docid=67obbV6XOOaXpM&w=327&h=400&q=pogo%20gummint&ved=2ahUKEwjr2fv15sbuAhUIZM0KHftnBK0QMygCegQIARBT From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 31 19:08:19 2021 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 13:08:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] parallel Message-ID: Why are children so honest and trusting and adults are not? Well, obviously you haven?t had any children. Liars - all of them. In fact they will baldly lie where they are easily caught. It is as if the world has to fit what they want it to be. (rest of answer erased) --------- That was my answer on Quora. Then it occurred to me that that last sentence describes many of the people involved in current politics. It is as if they have some kind of developmental retardation and are still thinking like children whose reality consists of what they want to be true. Hmm. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bronto at pobox.com Sun Jan 31 18:56:42 2021 From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2021 10:56:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] very stimulating In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> Them fokes dunno know to spell. It's 'gummint'. bill w On 2021-1-31 10:33, Bill Hibbard via extropy-chat wrote: > Indeed: > https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fthumbs.worthpoint.com%2Fzoom%2Fimages3%2F1%2F1014%2F02%2Foriginal-pogo-daily-comic-strip-walt_1_65f560672afcf4dd5526fe8efb6b74c0.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worthpoint.com%2Fworthopedia%2Foriginal-pogo-daily-comic-strip-walt-1114915691&tbnid=zlVxyCAhc8ntdM&vet=12ahUKEwjr2fv15sbuAhUIZM0KHftnBK0QMygCegQIARBT..i&docid=67obbV6XOOaXpM&w=327&h=400&q=pogo%20gummint&ved=2ahUKEwjr2fv15sbuAhUIZM0KHftnBK0QMygCegQIARBT Or more concisely: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/original-pogo-daily-comic-strip-walt-1114915691 -- *\\* Anton Sherwood *\\* www.bendwavy.org