From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 1 01:23:05 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 19:23:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] name to top all names? Message-ID: A black football player is named Adonai - Hebrew for God I wonder if his mother knew. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 1 02:03:00 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 21:03:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] pistols In-Reply-To: References: <001801d7361b$b7f591a0$27e0b4e0$@rainier66.com> <004401d73660$ca8da600$5fa8f200$@rainier66.com> <003d01d73c3f$10e665e0$32b331a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 9:45 PM Will Steinberg wrote: > >> ### I think that the death penalty does have a mild deterrent effect on >> prospective murderers, and it is a way to permanently remove them from >> circulation, so it does have the potential to produce a net reduction in >> murders. I think that the gross reduction in murders per 100 executed true >> murderers very likely and significantly exceeds 2% (but I don't know by how >> much), so accepting a 2% false positive rate should preserve a net >> beneficial effect on innocent lives saved from murder, and therefore the >> death penalty for murder a reasonable and commendable action, under the >> assumptions stated. Of course, I discount the value of a true murderer's >> life to zero. >> > > I don't really think anyone who commits a capital-level offense is > thinking much about the death penalty. > ### Indeed, if the known consequences of an act involve e.g. being drawn-and-quartered in the town square, then the only ones who commit it are those who don't think much. But if it is known that there are no consequences (i.e. you get a slap-on-the wrist 2-year sentence and some shrink sessions), those who think about consequences (which is a lot of people) will be emboldened to act. Big difference. It's like store pillaging in California - it took certain balls to do it back in the day but now even timid assholes do it. --------------------------------- > And I doubt it's more of a deterrent than jail. You really think someone > is like "I wanna go kill a bunch of people, but I don't want to die! Now, > life in prison, that's not so bad..."? > > ### Seriously? If you felt like killing somebody and you were weighing the pros and cons, would you really disregard the difference between being taken out back and shot vs. being thrown in jail for a few years? Dunno, if I was planning to kill people the possibility of a date with the iron maiden would weigh heavily on my decision. I am such a vicious person I don't even agree with the founding fathers' abhorrence for cruel and unusual punishment. --------------------------------- > > >> I agree with you that a state should not be able to kill people except in >> war, which in my current minarchist mindset is the state's only reasonable >> use case. I'd rather use a private judge and executioner to exact my >> posthumous revenge on the one that kills me. >> > > Jesus christ lol, ancap much? > ### Almost. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 1 02:05:03 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 21:05:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] pistols In-Reply-To: References: <001801d7361b$b7f591a0$27e0b4e0$@rainier66.com> <004401d73660$ca8da600$5fa8f200$@rainier66.com> <003d01d73c3f$10e665e0$32b331a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 11:07 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 6:21 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> BTW, Mozart's Requiem which features these verses is one of the most >> moving and dramatic pieces of music ever, especially when you follow the >> lyrics. Truly soul-rending even for a soulless computational device like me. >> >> We were near Nice when I saw ads for the Requiem, and went to the >> concert. I stood the whole time and could not say a word to save my life. >> I cannot listen to it without powerful emotions. Not for easy listening. >> bill w >> > > The impact is much reduced when, as I have often experienced such things, > the performance and acoustics conspire to make the lyrics an > unintelligible a capella that contrasts with the music. > ### Best to listen at home to a big stereo system with the Latin original and the English translation on the screen. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 1 05:06:11 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 21:06:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] pistols In-Reply-To: References: <001801d7361b$b7f591a0$27e0b4e0$@rainier66.com> <004401d73660$ca8da600$5fa8f200$@rainier66.com> <003d01d73c3f$10e665e0$32b331a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 6:10 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 11:07 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 6:21 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> BTW, Mozart's Requiem which features these verses is one of the most >>> moving and dramatic pieces of music ever, especially when you follow the >>> lyrics. Truly soul-rending even for a soulless computational device like me. >>> >>> We were near Nice when I saw ads for the Requiem, and went to the >>> concert. I stood the whole time and could not say a word to save my life. >>> I cannot listen to it without powerful emotions. Not for easy listening. >>> bill w >>> >> >> The impact is much reduced when, as I have often experienced such things, >> the performance and acoustics conspire to make the lyrics an >> unintelligible a capella that contrasts with the music. >> > > ### Best to listen at home to a big stereo system with the Latin original > and the English translation on the screen. > Where subtitled videos exist, they help a lot. My girlfriend and I were watching Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings recently, and subtitled translations greatly helped our enjoyment of the non-English portions of the movie. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 1 15:44:56 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2022 09:44:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] punishment 3 Message-ID: What would you call it when getting your kicks from punishing other people becomes more important than changing the other's behavior? Some call it Sadism. Overdoing punishment amounts to torture. I think punishment should be done by people like this: "This hurts me more than it hurts you." In other words an empathetic person. One who cares about fellow human beings. I think it is probable that punishment done this way creates less resentment and hostility. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 14:00:18 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 09:00:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] gmo news In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 5:43 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2021/12/17/5-reasons-why-the-gmo-debate-is-over/ > ? > I'm not anti GMO, but this is just propaganda. 1. They?re safe. They're not inherently safe. There haven't been any catastrophic failures yet, but they could happen. Even without GMO disasters there are questions about the impact of GMOs on the environment and the agriculture industry, at least. 2. The conversation around GMOs is both shrinking and increasingly positive in tone. Granted, most people support GMOs--or at least don't oppose them. But that doesn't mean the debate is over. 3. Young people support biotechnology. So what? The pro-GMO debate will be over when the old people are gone? 4. Farmers love GMO crops. Of course they do. They're designed to make farming more profitable (while the GMO makers take a slice of the profits.) GMOs are good for Cargill, Monsanto, General Foods, and other major corporations in the government agricultural complex, but it's less clear that they're overall positive for farmers and consumers. 5. Opposition in Europe has eased. So what? This is the same as #2. GMOs are tools, and like any other tools they can be used well or used poorly. We should strive to ensure that they're being used wisely. Improving the debate would help ensure that. Declaring the debate over is an attempt to bypass a layer of oversight. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kristinanelason4 at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 14:29:33 2022 From: kristinanelason4 at gmail.com (kristina nelason) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 22:29:33 +0800 Subject: [ExI] gmo news In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have to agree with your opinions to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th points from the article. But the economy factor which comes from the 4th point could be sometimes significant or even fundamental to human's living demands. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 19:03:59 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 13:03:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] gmo news In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In many places in the world, farmers disregard package instructions and use more of the -ides (fungi-, insect-, weed killers) and the rates of cancer there are amazing. With GMO you can use far less of these, saving lives of the workers. bill w On Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 9:48 AM kristina nelason via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I have to agree with your opinions to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th points > from the article. > But the economy factor which comes from the 4th point could be sometimes > significant or even fundamental to human's living demands. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 2 19:39:05 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 11:39:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] treat for mercury fans Message-ID: <000201d80010$6791ba30$36b52e90$@rainier66.com> A lot of people have never seen Mercury. The next few days would give you the best opportunity, as it reaches a really high elongation. Go out at dusk if it is clear and you have a good view to the west. Venus is the bright one up there. You know where the plane of the ecliptic: it drops at an angle of 90 degrees minus your latitude. Along that ecliptic, about half way between the horizon and Venus is Mercury. It is a fortunate coincidence that Mercury reaches its aphelion close to the winter solstice. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 20:12:07 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 15:12:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] gmo news In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 2, 2022, 2:07 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > In many places in the world, farmers disregard package instructions and > use more of the -ides (fungi-, insect-, weed killers) and the rates of > cancer there are amazing. With GMO you can use far less of these, saving > lives of the workers. > With GMOs you *can *use less chemicals, but you don't necessarily. For example, Round Up resistant corn allows copious amounts of Round Up to be applied to corn crops to kill weeds. -Dave > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 20:14:03 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 20:14:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] treat for mercury fans In-Reply-To: <000201d80010$6791ba30$36b52e90$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d80010$6791ba30$36b52e90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jan 2022 at 19:41, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > A lot of people have never seen Mercury. The next few days would give you > the best opportunity, as it reaches a really high elongation. > > > > Go out at dusk if it is clear and you have a good view to the west. Venus > is the bright one up there. You know where the plane of the ecliptic: it > drops at an angle of 90 degrees minus your latitude. > > > > Along that ecliptic, about half way between the horizon and Venus is > Mercury. It is a fortunate coincidence that Mercury reaches its aphelion > close to the winter solstice. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > > You need a picture here. :) [image: mercury.webp] from BillK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: mercury.webp Type: image/webp Size: 10220 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 20:17:02 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 15:17:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] treat for mercury fans In-Reply-To: <000201d80010$6791ba30$36b52e90$@rainier66.com> References: <000201d80010$6791ba30$36b52e90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The Sky Map app is very handy for locating what you're looking for and identifying what you're looking at. -Dave On Sun, Jan 2, 2022, 2:41 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > A lot of people have never seen Mercury. The next few days would give you > the best opportunity, as it reaches a really high elongation. > > > > Go out at dusk if it is clear and you have a good view to the west. Venus > is the bright one up there. You know where the plane of the ecliptic: it > drops at an angle of 90 degrees minus your latitude. > > > > Along that ecliptic, about half way between the horizon and Venus is > Mercury. It is a fortunate coincidence that Mercury reaches its aphelion > close to the winter solstice. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 22:08:58 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 16:08:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] gmo news In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I can't say that I have kept up with the news, but I think Roundup has been found non carcinogenic (and some have found that is). I dunno. But breeding resistance to insects, fungi and so forth has to be a great thing. Esp. for a tomato grower. It won't be long before we have tomatoes that are resistant to everything,since various tomatoes have those resistances but not all are combined into one plant. Then they will breed tomatoes that taste great and are tough enough to ship (and I can stop raising them), which is not the case now. We all know about those hothouse red tennis balls they sell as tomatoes. bill w On Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 2:14 PM Dave S via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 2, 2022, 2:07 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> In many places in the world, farmers disregard package instructions and >> use more of the -ides (fungi-, insect-, weed killers) and the rates of >> cancer there are amazing. With GMO you can use far less of these, saving >> lives of the workers. >> > > With GMOs you *can *use less chemicals, but you don't necessarily. For > example, Round Up resistant corn allows copious amounts of Round Up to be > applied to corn crops to kill weeds. > > -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 spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 3 01:17:33 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2022 17:17:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] treat for mercury fans In-Reply-To: References: <000201d80010$6791ba30$36b52e90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006401d8003f$afff6680$0ffe3380$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] treat for mercury fans On Sun, 2 Jan 2022 at 19:41, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: A lot of people have never seen Mercury. The next few days would give you the best opportunity, as it reaches a really high elongation. ?spike _______________________________________________ You need a picture here. :) BillK Sure do, thx BillK. My information was already outdated. Now Venus is dropping (those inner planets move, which is how Mercury got its name) and I was describing the situation last time we had a good clear evening which was a week ago. Now Mercury is higher than Venus: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 19632 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 12:27:27 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 12:27:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] How big is our Universe? Message-ID: Join Professor Brian Cox on an astonishing journey from Earth to the edge of the known Universe. 4 January 2022 Revisiting ?Powers of Ten? ? what we?ve learned about the Universe since 1977 Directed by Charles and Ray Eames, the legendary husband-and-wife filmmaking and design team, the classic short Powers of Ten (1977) invited viewers to contemplate the edges of our understanding of reality. This new short video pays homage to the Eames classic by transposing its elegantly simple premise to today - the resulting film integrates updates in astronomy, astronomical imaging and human understanding into its journey far into the cosmos and back again. (7 minutes) BillK From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 4 13:59:38 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 05:59:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How big is our Universe? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004001d80173$50cfc490$f26f4db0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat (7 minutes) BillK _______________________________________________ Thanks BillK! I remember being mind-blown by the 1977 original. Now I am looking forward to the sequel to this one where they go down in closer by a factor of 10 every 10 seconds. spike From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 4 14:09:53 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 06:09:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos Message-ID: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> Over the past 50 years (longer really) society has experienced (or perpetrated) a diminished collective skillset in multiple areas. Good examples would be the collective ability to create a meal from raw produce, fixing a car or general home repairs. We have accepted the societal interdependence resultant in greater specialization, so that now a far greater proportion of society subsists on food processed and packaged in a factory, cars don't need much attention anymore, most major appliances are replaced as a unit, and we call specialists for most home repairs. Almost imperceptibly is the gradual diminishing of society's collective ability to follow a series of simple instructions. I predict this will be demonstrated by the local public schools in their distribution of covid home tests. The instructions are not complicated but there are a series of them. My confident prediction is that a large portion of the general public will be unable to do them all correctly, resulting in the most common error being a false negative. Many will not use the test and report negative (which counts as a false negative in those who have covid.) It isn't as clear to me how one might get a false positive with these kits, but there you have it, my prediction: jillions of these tests distributed, a huge percentage of them used incorrectly, the most common result is a false negative. spike From kristinanelason4 at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 15:36:07 2022 From: kristinanelason4 at gmail.com (kristina nelason) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 23:36:07 +0800 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> References: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: that's true the specialization made people foolish. spike jones via extropy-chat ?2022?1?4??? 22:10??? > > > Over the past 50 years (longer really) society has experienced (or > perpetrated) a diminished collective skillset in multiple areas. Good > examples would be the collective ability to create a meal from raw produce, > fixing a car or general home repairs. We have accepted the societal > interdependence resultant in greater specialization, so that now a far > greater proportion of society subsists on food processed and packaged in a > factory, cars don't need much attention anymore, most major appliances are > replaced as a unit, and we call specialists for most home repairs. > > Almost imperceptibly is the gradual diminishing of society's collective > ability to follow a series of simple instructions. I predict this will be > demonstrated by the local public schools in their distribution of covid > home tests. > > The instructions are not complicated but there are a series of them. My > confident prediction is that a large portion of the general public will be > unable to do them all correctly, resulting in the most common error being a > false negative. Many will not use the test and report negative (which > counts as a false negative in those who have covid.) It isn't as clear to > me how one might get a false positive with these kits, but there you have > it, my prediction: jillions of these tests distributed, a huge percentage > of them used incorrectly, the most common result is a false negative. > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 21:54:03 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 13:54:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How big is our Universe? In-Reply-To: <004001d80173$50cfc490$f26f4db0$@rainier66.com> References: <004001d80173$50cfc490$f26f4db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 4, 2022 at 6:01 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 > > < > https://aeon.co/videos/revisiting-powers-of-ten-what-weve-learned-about-the-universe-since-1977 > > > (7 minutes) > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > > Thanks BillK! > > I remember being mind-blown by the 1977 original. Now I am looking > forward to the sequel to this one where they go down in closer by a factor > of 10 every 10 seconds. > > spike > That was my first thought, too. 9 or 10 factors of 10 ought to be doable, depending on what they zoom in upon. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 22:15:16 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 22:15:16 +0000 Subject: [ExI] How big is our Universe? In-Reply-To: References: <004001d80173$50cfc490$f26f4db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jan 2022 at 21:57, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Tue, Jan 4, 2022 at 6:01 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat >> >> >> (7 minutes) >> BillK >> _______________________________________________ >> >> Thanks BillK! >> >> I remember being mind-blown by the 1977 original. Now I am looking forward to the sequel to this one where they go down in closer by a factor of 10 every 10 seconds. >> >> spike > > > That was my first thought, too. 9 or 10 factors of 10 ought to be doable, depending on what they zoom in upon. > _______________________________________________ Do you mean zooming closer to go inside atoms? It's been done. Search for 'video zoom into atom'. There is a selection of videos to look at. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 4 22:44:18 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 14:44:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos In-Reply-To: References: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004101d801bc$9c7d5ad0$d5781070$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of kristina nelason via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] i predict chaos >?that's true the specialization made people foolish? On the contrary Kristina, it is made people more specialized, which appears foolish to those who recognize missing skillsets. Many of our direct ancestors could heat an iron bar, hammer it into a horseshoe. Now that skill is extremely rare because it is irrelevant. We have entered a world in which many skills people our age took for granted are now irrelevant and rare. Welcome to the neighborhood. Do tell us something about Kristina please. spike spike jones via extropy-chat > ?2022?1?4??? 22:10??? Over the past 50 years (longer really) society has experienced (or perpetrated) a diminished collective skillset in multiple areas. ?spike _______________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 23:24:59 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 23:24:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <004101d801bc$9c7d5ad0$d5781070$@rainier66.com> References: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> <004101d801bc$9c7d5ad0$d5781070$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jan 2022 at 22:47, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Many of our direct ancestors could heat an iron bar, hammer it into a horseshoe. Now that skill is extremely rare because it is irrelevant. > > We have entered a world in which many skills people our age took for granted are now irrelevant and rare. > > spike > _______________________________________________ Perhaps not that particular example. On UK television, programs about nature, farming and the countryside are popular. Just last weekend one program included an episode about trainees at an agricultural college who were training to be farriers. It seems that there are so many horses in the UK now that there is a shortage of farriers and they get paid very well indeed. I do agree about mechanical skills being lost. Even there though, there is the Right to Repair legislation going through. I have read that especially farmers are angry that they cannot repair their tractors themselves and have to wait for the dealer to repair them. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 4 23:26:58 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 15:26:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] they sprouted Message-ID: <006c01d801c2$91d77790$b58666b0$@rainier66.com> A coupla months ago I picked up several chestnuts. I managed to get two of them to germinate. Cool! Now I hafta find a place to plant them. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 13886 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 23:57:39 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 23:57:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] they sprouted In-Reply-To: <006c01d801c2$91d77790$b58666b0$@rainier66.com> References: <006c01d801c2$91d77790$b58666b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jan 2022 at 23:34, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > A coupla months ago I picked up several chestnuts. I managed to get two of them to germinate. Cool! > > Now I hafta find a place to plant them. spike > _______________________________________________ Be careful! They start off small, but can grow very big - up to 40 feet high and spread wide. See: BillK From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 5 00:01:37 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2022 16:01:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How big is our Universe? In-Reply-To: References: <004001d80173$50cfc490$f26f4db0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007901d801c7$6934fe70$3b9efb50$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat ... >> _______________________________________________ >> >> Thanks BillK! >> >> I remember being mind-blown by the 1977 original. Now I am looking forward to the sequel to this one where they go down in closer by a factor of 10 every 10 seconds. >> >> spike > > > That was my first thought, too. 9 or 10 factors of 10 ought to be doable, depending on what they zoom in upon. > _______________________________________________ >...Do you mean zooming closer to go inside atoms? It's been done. Search for 'video zoom into atom'. There is a selection of videos to look at. BillK _______________________________________________ They did that in the original 1977 Powers of Ten. One of the most informative things about that exercise is when one goes inside the atom, it is quite a while before you can even see the nucleus. spike spike From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 00:02:43 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 00:02:43 +0000 Subject: [ExI] they sprouted In-Reply-To: References: <006c01d801c2$91d77790$b58666b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jan 2022 at 23:57, BillK wrote: > > Be careful! They start off small, but can grow very big - up to 40 > feet high and spread wide. > See: > > BillK And I've just noticed that the link says that the pollen is poisonous to bees. :( BillK From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 15:24:37 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 10:24:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <004101d801bc$9c7d5ad0$d5781070$@rainier66.com> References: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> <004101d801bc$9c7d5ad0$d5781070$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 4, 2022 at 5:47 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *kristina nelason via extropy-chat > > > > >?that's true the specialization made people foolish? > > > On the contrary Kristina, it is made people more specialized, which > appears foolish to those who recognize missing skillsets. > > > > Many of our direct ancestors could heat an iron bar, hammer it into a > horseshoe. Now that skill is extremely rare because it is irrelevant. > > > > We have entered a world in which many skills people our age took for > granted are now irrelevant and rare. > When you don't have the foggiest notion of how to turn an iron bar into a horseshoe, you're not just avoiding an irrelevant skill, you're ignorant. You don't have to be a master farrier to have rudimentary blacksmithing skills. Heinlein's famous specialization quote isn't really arguing that people should be experts at everything and that there's no need for working experts in many fields. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 5 15:42:21 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 07:42:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos In-Reply-To: References: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> <004101d801bc$9c7d5ad0$d5781070$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003301d8024a$d4484090$7cd8c1b0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave S via extropy-chat >?Heinlein's famous specialization quote isn't really arguing that people should be experts at everything and that there's no need for working experts in many fields. -Dave Did you mean his ?Specialization is for insects? crack? There?s plenty to be said for increasing specialization as well. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 15:49:44 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 10:49:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <003301d8024a$d4484090$7cd8c1b0$@rainier66.com> References: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> <004101d801bc$9c7d5ad0$d5781070$@rainier66.com> <003301d8024a$d4484090$7cd8c1b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 10:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Dave S via extropy-chat > > >?Heinlein's famous specialization quote isn't really arguing that people > should be experts at everything and that there's no need for working > experts in many fields. > > > > Did you mean his ?Specialization is for insects? crack? > Yeah: https://reason.com/2020/02/29/specialization-is-for-insects/ There?s plenty to be said for increasing specialization as well. > Obviously. One wouldn't want their neighbor the salesman to do their brain surgery. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 5 17:21:43 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 09:21:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos Message-ID: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave S via extropy-chat https://reason.com/2020/02/29/specialization-is-for-insects/ There?s plenty to be said for increasing specialization as well. >?Obviously. One wouldn't want their neighbor the salesman to do their brain surgery. -Dave I have a neighbor who is such a good salesman, you could be left a vegetable afterwards but you would still think you got a great bargain in hiring her to do the surgery. As I was typing a reply, an idea occurred to me. Perhaps you have seen someone make a sandcast something at home, using molten aluminum. You make the model out of a kind of specialty wax, then you pack around it with a fine-grained sand mixed with a specialty silicate infused ceramic epoxy stuff, let that harden, then pour molten aluminum onto the model, the wax melts and flows away, chip away the mold and there?s your aluminum thing the same shape as the wax model. OK, well I suppose one could make a horseshoe that way, but another idea would be to make your model out of tin/lead 37/63 eutectic, as used in the electronics industry for solder. That way the model would be soft enough to work with a hammer without making all that racket that hot steel makes when you work it and it would still be rigid enough to do the kinds of fit checks and such that the modeling wax isn?t strong enough to withstand. Example: tap a threaded hole in the tin/lead model, that might create a workable threaded hole in a sand casting. When your cast sets up, Turn the casting upside down, put it in an ordinary propane webber grill full blast, let the metal melt and flow out since it only needs to get to 180C. rig up a homebrew blast furnace with a leaf-blower and charcoal, with the structure made of those interlocking garden-wall stones, where you substitute metal pins in place of the plastic ones to hold them in place. Now you have your horseshoe shaped cavity (or cavity shaped like a car part (such as an adapter plate)) in your sand cast, your crucible of molten iron, ready to pour. Hmmm? pretty expensive horseshoe perhaps. But we would have fun rigging up the stuff we would need. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 18:06:55 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 10:06:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 9:23 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > As I was typing a reply, an idea occurred to me. Perhaps you have seen > someone make a sandcast something at home, using molten aluminum. You make > the model out of a kind of specialty wax, then you pack around it with a > fine-grained sand mixed with a specialty silicate infused ceramic epoxy > stuff, let that harden, then pour molten aluminum onto the model, the wax > melts and flows away, chip away the mold and there?s your aluminum thing > the same shape as the wax model. > > > > OK, well I suppose one could make a horseshoe that way, but another idea > would be to make your model out of tin/lead 37/63 eutectic, as used in the > electronics industry for solder. That way the model would be soft enough > to work with a hammer without making all that racket that hot steel makes > when you work it and it would still be rigid enough to do the kinds of fit > checks and such that the modeling wax isn?t strong enough to withstand. > Example: tap a threaded hole in the tin/lead model, that might create a > workable threaded hole in a sand casting. > > > > When your cast sets up, Turn the casting upside down, put it in an > ordinary propane webber grill full blast, let the metal melt and flow out > since it only needs to get to 180C. rig up a homebrew blast furnace with a > leaf-blower and charcoal, with the structure made of those interlocking > garden-wall stones, where you substitute metal pins in place of the plastic > ones to hold them in place. > > > > Now you have your horseshoe shaped cavity (or cavity shaped like a car > part (such as an adapter plate)) in your sand cast, your crucible of molten > iron, ready to pour. Hmmm? pretty expensive horseshoe perhaps. But we > would have fun rigging up the stuff we would need. > So here's another idea. Start with my old programmable shape array - https://patents.google.com/patent/US6487454B1/en - pressing a disposable surface coated with something that hardens with electricity. (I hear that a paste of corn starch + silicone oil hardens up to a consistency similar to concrete with 12V @ 500 mA.) Press it into the shape of the mold you want (as designed in some CAD tool), apply electricity, remove the array (since it might not stand up to high heat), pour the molten iron, wait for it to cool, cease applying electricity so the mold becomes soft, and remove the mold. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 5 20:53:19 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 12:53:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009b01d80276$4550f680$cff2e380$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, January 5, 2022 10:07 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 9:23 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: As I was typing a reply, an idea occurred to me. Perhaps you have seen someone make a sandcast something at home, using molten aluminum. You make the model out of a kind of specialty wax, then you pack around it with a fine-grained sand mixed with a specialty silicate infused ceramic epoxy stuff, let that harden, then pour molten aluminum onto the model, the wax melts and flows away, chip away the mold and there?s your aluminum thing the same shape as the wax model. OK, well I suppose one could make a horseshoe that way, but another idea would be to make your model out of tin/lead 37/63 eutectic, as used in the electronics industry for solder. That way the model would be soft enough to work with a hammer without making all that racket that hot steel makes when you work it and it would still be rigid enough to do the kinds of fit checks and such that the modeling wax isn?t strong enough to withstand. Example: tap a threaded hole in the tin/lead model, that might create a workable threaded hole in a sand casting. When your cast sets up, Turn the casting upside down, put it in an ordinary propane webber grill full blast, let the metal melt and flow out since it only needs to get to 180C. rig up a homebrew blast furnace with a leaf-blower and charcoal, with the structure made of those interlocking garden-wall stones, where you substitute metal pins in place of the plastic ones to hold them in place. Now you have your horseshoe shaped cavity (or cavity shaped like a car part (such as an adapter plate)) in your sand cast, your crucible of molten iron, ready to pour. Hmmm? pretty expensive horseshoe perhaps. But we would have fun rigging up the stuff we would need. So here's another idea. Start with my old programmable shape array - https://patents.google.com/patent/US6487454B1/en - pressing a disposable surface coated with something that hardens with electricity. (I hear that a paste of corn starch + silicone oil hardens up to a consistency similar to concrete with 12V @ 500 mA.) Press it into the shape of the mold you want (as designed in some CAD tool), apply electricity, remove the array (since it might not stand up to high heat), pour the molten iron, wait for it to cool, cease applying electricity so the mold becomes soft, and remove the mold? Now yer thinking Adrian! Before we do that however, we aughta get a 3D printer, make something, get one of those kits people used back in the olden days when kids had hot rods and were sand casting custom pistons (note to our younger audience: a ?hot rod? is a car or bike with a modified? (oh never mind (we had fun.))) I suppose we can still find that stuff somewhere. We make a model on a 3D printer, pack the ceramic mud around it, heat cure the mold in a webber grill, pour in the molten iron (or we might even be able to use steel) on top of the plastic model which boils away, you get an iron whatever it was we printed. Adrian in your case since you are in the space biz, we use aluminum which is easier to work with than molten iron. Full disclosure: I haven?t done this procedure myself. I have seen it done only, but since I haven?t actually done it, I assume that I suck. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 21:22:51 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 13:22:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <009b01d80276$4550f680$cff2e380$@rainier66.com> References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> <009b01d80276$4550f680$cff2e380$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 12:55 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > note to our younger audience: a ?hot rod? is a car or bike with a > modified? (oh never mind (we had fun.)) > Please do be careful of potentially excessively NSFW phrasing. "Hot rod", explained like that, could be something out of a porn flick involving a vehicle. (I kid. :P ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 5 21:32:59 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 13:32:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> <009b01d80276$4550f680$cff2e380$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00cb01d8027b$d0388e70$70a9ab50$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 12:55 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: note to our younger audience: a ?hot rod? is a car or bike with a modified? (oh never mind (we had fun.)) >?Please do be careful of potentially excessively NSFW phrasing. "Hot rod", explained like that, could be something out of a porn flick involving a vehicle. (I kid. :P ) HEY what a concept! We use the 3D printer to make sand-cast models to create devices useful in the porn flick industry. Adrian, you are a terrific ideas guy, me lad. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 21:33:58 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 16:33:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <009b01d80276$4550f680$cff2e380$@rainier66.com> References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> <009b01d80276$4550f680$cff2e380$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 3:55 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Wednesday, January 5, 2022 10:07 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* Adrian Tymes > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos > > > > On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 9:23 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > As I was typing a reply, an idea occurred to me. Perhaps you have seen > someone make a sandcast something at home, using molten aluminum. You make > the model out of a kind of specialty wax, then you pack around it with a > fine-grained sand mixed with a specialty silicate infused ceramic epoxy > stuff, let that harden, then pour molten aluminum onto the model, the wax > melts and flows away, chip away the mold and there?s your aluminum thing > the same shape as the wax model. > > > > OK, well I suppose one could make a horseshoe that way, but another idea > would be to make your model out of tin/lead 37/63 eutectic, as used in the > electronics industry for solder. That way the model would be soft enough > to work with a hammer without making all that racket that hot steel makes > when you work it and it would still be rigid enough to do the kinds of fit > checks and such that the modeling wax isn?t strong enough to withstand. > Example: tap a threaded hole in the tin/lead model, that might create a > workable threaded hole in a sand casting. > > > > When your cast sets up, Turn the casting upside down, put it in an > ordinary propane webber grill full blast, let the metal melt and flow out > since it only needs to get to 180C. rig up a homebrew blast furnace with a > leaf-blower and charcoal, with the structure made of those interlocking > garden-wall stones, where you substitute metal pins in place of the plastic > ones to hold them in place. > > > > Now you have your horseshoe shaped cavity (or cavity shaped like a car > part (such as an adapter plate)) in your sand cast, your crucible of molten > iron, ready to pour. Hmmm? pretty expensive horseshoe perhaps. But we > would have fun rigging up the stuff we would need. > > > > So here's another idea. > > > > Start with my old programmable shape array - > https://patents.google.com/patent/US6487454B1/en - pressing a disposable > surface coated with something that hardens with electricity. (I hear that > a paste of corn starch + silicone oil hardens up to a consistency similar > to concrete with 12V @ 500 mA.) Press it into the shape of the mold you > want (as designed in some CAD tool), apply electricity, remove the array > (since it might not stand up to high heat), pour the molten iron, wait for > it to cool, cease applying electricity so the mold becomes soft, and remove > the mold? > > > > > > > > Now yer thinking Adrian! > > > > Before we do that however, we aughta get a 3D printer, make something, get > one of those kits people used back in the olden days when kids had hot rods > and were sand casting custom pistons (note to our younger audience: a ?hot > rod? is a car or bike with a modified? (oh never mind (we had fun.))) I > suppose we can still find that stuff somewhere. > > > > We make a model on a 3D printer, pack the ceramic mud around it, heat cure > the mold in a webber grill, pour in the molten iron (or we might even be > able to use steel) on top of the plastic model which boils away, you get an > iron whatever it was we printed. Adrian in your case since you are in the > space biz, we use aluminum which is easier to work with than molten iron. > > > > Full disclosure: I haven?t done this procedure myself. I have seen it > done only, but since I haven?t actually done it, I assume that I suck. > 3D printing is cool, but when you get serious about it, you call it "additive manufacturing". My soon to be ex-employer does some of this: https://www.ornl.gov/content/additive-manufacturing Including the first 3D printed parts used in a nuclear reactor: https://www.ornl.gov/news/nuclear-reactor-components-3d-printed-ornl-now-installed-tva-browns-ferry-nuclear-plant Printing horseshoes would be easy but probably not economical, yet. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 5 21:38:09 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 13:38:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <00cb01d8027b$d0388e70$70a9ab50$@rainier66.com> References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> <009b01d80276$4550f680$cff2e380$@rainier66.com> <00cb01d8027b$d0388e70$70a9ab50$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00d201d8027c$891f4dc0$9b5de940$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 12:55 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: note to our younger audience: a ?hot rod? is a car or bike with a modified? (oh never mind (we had fun.)) >>?Please do be careful of potentially excessively NSFW phrasing. "Hot rod", explained like that, could be something out of a porn flick involving a vehicle? spike >?HEY what a concept! We use the 3D printer to make sand-cast models to create devices useful in the porn flick industry. Adrian, you are a terrific ideas guy, me lad. Spike It?s a sad state of affairs with our crowd really. We start off talking about covid tests and the general public?s collective inability to follow a series of instructions. Soon the discussion degenerates to 3D printing, to modified engines to solid aluminum dildoes, all in a space of one day. How cool is that! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 23:02:42 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 17:02:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: mutations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: William Flynn Wallace Date: Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 12:13 PM Subject: mutations To: spike In the last 3 to 10 thousand years, adaptive mutations have independently occurred in Africa, Europe, and Central Asia, in the LCT gene, which codes for lactase. Curiously, the mutations occur only in the people who are herders of animals, and not in the foraging tribes nearby. We are taught that mutations are random. This seems anything but random. It seems that the ability to digest milk genetically develops among the people who need it and not otherwise. What is going on here? Epigenetics? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 6 04:09:00 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 23:09:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: mutations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 6:04 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: William Flynn Wallace > Date: Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 12:13 PM > Subject: mutations > To: spike > > > In the last 3 to 10 thousand years, adaptive mutations have independently > occurred in Africa, Europe, and Central Asia, in the LCT gene, which > codes for lactase. Curiously, the mutations occur only in the people who > are herders of animals, and not in the foraging tribes nearby. > > We are taught that mutations are random. This seems anything but random. > It seems that the ability to digest milk genetically develops among the > people who need it and not otherwise. > > What is going on here? Epigenetics? > ### No. Natural selection. Mutations that enable lactose digestion occur randomly in all populations but they are fitness-enhancing only in populations where adults have access to plentiful milk. This mutation then increases in frequency over time only in such populations and is easy to find in a genetic screen. In other populations the same mutations are fitness-decreasing, since they lead to the production of an enzyme (which costs energy) that has nothing to do in an adult without access to milk. A one-in-a-million new lactase mutation in a forager therefore stays at that very low frequency or disappears, so you never find it in a genetic screen that looks at a few hundred individuals. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 6 04:17:55 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 23:17:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 12:23 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > Now you have your horseshoe shaped cavity (or cavity shaped like a car > part (such as an adapter plate)) in your sand cast, your crucible of molten > iron, ready to pour. Hmmm? pretty expensive horseshoe perhaps. But we > would have fun rigging up the stuff we would need. > ### Cast iron would be a very poor material for a horseshoe due to its brittleness and stiffness. Horseshoes need high impact resistance and a little bit of flex to stay attached to the hoof which is why they are relatively thin and made of forged iron or steel. A cast iron horseshoe strong enough to resist shattering would be very heavy. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 6 06:00:12 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 22:00:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002c01d802c2$abc428a0$034c79e0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Sent: Wednesday, January 5, 2022 8:18 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: Re: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 12:23 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Now you have your horseshoe shaped cavity (or cavity shaped like a car part (such as an adapter plate)) in your sand cast, your crucible of molten iron, ready to pour. Hmmm? pretty expensive horseshoe perhaps. But we would have fun rigging up the stuff we would need. ### Cast iron would be a very poor material for a horseshoe due to its brittleness and stiffness. Horseshoes need high impact resistance and a little bit of flex to stay attached to the hoof which is why they are relatively thin and made of forged iron or steel. A cast iron horseshoe strong enough to resist shattering would be very heavy. Rafal Rafal, after I wrote that goofy post I realized even if we used steel, the casting process is incompatible with horseshoes. Casting leaves porosity in the metal which causes the brittleness of cast iron. Forging makes the metal really strong. So the blacksmith gradually sells away his hearing for a purpose: pounding on the hot iron is the way to make good horseshoes. I do family history, so I will inject a story at this point. My great grandfather?s brother was a blacksmith and suffered the usual occupational hazard: his hearing was damaged from years of clanging away at horseshoes. Naturally his business declined in the 1920s and 1930s as farming and transportation were mechanized, horses and mules replaced. He did not own a farm. A nearby factory was making tracks for battle tanks. The machine where they had an opening created individual tread shoes. A block of red hot steel would come into the machine, the operator would center and align the hot iron block, then a forging device would slam down upon it, ten tons moving the speed of a modern car on the freeway. It only took one strike for each tread shoe, but the noise was understandably horrendous. The tank tread foundry wouldn?t take anyone for that job who was not completely deaf. My relative wasn?t, he still had some hearing. As he waited for his interview he heard a paper sack pop. Apparently the applicant had jumped, proving that he was not completely deaf. Appropriately forewarned, my relative realized someone was going to sneak up behind him with a paper sack during the sign-language interview. When it happened, he heard it clearly but didn?t jump or look around. Convinced of his total deafness, they hired him. He made tank treads for the rest of the 1930s and the duration of the war, after which he had no hearing left, not a trace. But his family had food on the table and shoes on their feet. Times are better now. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 6 13:27:49 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2022 08:27:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] horseshoes, was: RE: i predict chaos In-Reply-To: References: <003c01d80258$b5e39c40$21aad4c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 11:19 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ### Cast iron would be a very poor material for a horseshoe due to its > brittleness and stiffness. Horseshoes need high impact resistance and a > little bit of flex to stay attached to the hoof which is why they are > relatively thin and made of forged iron or steel. A cast iron horseshoe > strong enough to resist shattering would be very heavy. > Race horses use aluminum shoes. From https://www.elizabeththefarrier.com/tag/steel-vs-aluminum-horseshoes/ *Material Most commonly cast or machined from mild steel or aluminum. Steel is more durable, easily worked in the forge and less expensive. Aluminum shoes are much lighter, able to be applied with glue and available in many styles for therapeutic applications.The market for shoes made of even less traditional materials like plastic, rubber and fiberglass or the combination of seems to be growing. I?m sure as 3D printing becomes more accessible, choices will continue to increase.* -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Thu Jan 6 14:22:18 2022 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2022 15:22:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos In-Reply-To: References: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> <004101d801bc$9c7d5ad0$d5781070$@rainier66.com> <003301d8024a$d4484090$7cd8c1b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: You want someone highly specialised and frankly quit Asp personality to do certain things, like for example digging around in your brain. Someone who spends lots of time think about and optimizes critical procedures before they are put into practice, like the Webb telescope. At the same time you want that superfocused person to know all relevant history, a lot of unrelated but potentially useful stuff etc. The optimal specialist are thus a person with needle focus on the problem and a renaissance scholarly breadth of unrelated trivia knowledge combined with a manic fountain of ideas. I agree fully with Heinlein, to be able to become an expert on Foo, you need to understand all things Bar. I strive my best to reach this, thus the project of the day has been to understand the defensive half roll to ground utilised by Swedish recon pilots when jumped by MIGs, (DCS world Viggen simulator helps with this) build and try a fletching jig for arrows and try out the Russian secondary draw when speedshooting arrows. And later this evening a new board game. /Henrik *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf Of >> *Dave S via extropy-chat >> >> >?Heinlein's famous specialization quote isn't really arguing that people >> should be experts at everything and that there's no need for working >> experts in many fields. >> >> >> >> Did you mean his ?Specialization is for insects? crack? >> > > Yeah: > > https://reason.com/2020/02/29/specialization-is-for-insects/ > > There?s plenty to be said for increasing specialization as well. >> > > Obviously. One wouldn't want their neighbor the salesman to do their > brain surgery. > > -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 Thu Jan 6 20:19:15 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2022 14:19:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] book review Message-ID: Blueprint: the evolutionary origins of a good society - Nicholas Christakis - M.D. Ph. D. Harvard Often my attitude towards sociologists is one of downright scorn, esp. towards those who deny genetic origins of social behavior. Here is a big exception. The first parts of the book were boring to me: marriage customs in various societies, and other areas of sociology that don't interest me. But he makes up for it later with plenty of good data on biology and genetics. This book is where I got the examples I used in the 'mutation' posts of the last few days. It was not a game-changing book for me, but might be to some people. Clear A ratings - 4.5 stars bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 7 15:23:57 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 07:23:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i predict chaos In-Reply-To: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> References: <004801d80174$bf525df0$3df719d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005501d803da$96febb60$c4fc3220$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: i predict chaos >? my prediction: jillions of these tests distributed, a huge percentage of them used incorrectly, the most common result is a false negative. spike OK, the results are in with regard to my prediction of chaos: the local high school is running about 10% positive test results. One who was at the emergency school board meeting last night posted me that they decided to close school for two weeks and go online. There may be some downside to that. But in the meantime? enough time has passed that I am ready to report a tentative conclusion that apparently most of the recent surge in cases are the omicron variant and that omicron apparently doesn?t slay the proles. A caveat remains that data may be delayed because of the Christmas holidays, but the average appears to be holding at about 20 deaths per day using a rolling 7 day average. I looked at the data delay factor in 2020 and it looks like enough time has passed for the crackers to count their corpses by now. If all this is so? we are at the end of the horrifying nightmare. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 26658 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 27408 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 7 16:07:31 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 08:07:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] intentional false positives, was: RE: i predict chaos Message-ID: <006501d803e0$ad6ba420$0842ec60$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: spike at rainier66.com > Subject: i predict chaos >>? my prediction: jillions of these tests distributed, a huge percentage of them used incorrectly, the most common result is a false negative. spike >?OK, the results are in with regard to my prediction of chaos: the local high school is running about 10% positive test results. One who was at the emergency school board meeting last night posted me that they decided to close school for two weeks and go online? Help me estimate this number please: what percentage of students want school to go online? Most want to meet at school in person, but our world is filled with diversity, so I would be surprised if that number is lower than about 10%. I would estimate it at closer to 15 or so. Any other guesses? Reason I ask: the students know how to use the internet, so they know stuff such as how to make these tests read positive. Instead of using the swab up the old schnoz, they put three drops of cola on the indicator, a few minutes later, it shows positive for covid. OK then. The students already know that plenty of people will show positive with no apparent symptoms, and if they get one positive and one negative result the same day, it counts as a positive. So? they cola-fake a positive, get a free two-week vacation from school. If enough of them are doing that, everybody goes online. The slackers get a free excuse for their lousy performance. The academic athletes pull ahead of the pack even faster. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 7 19:35:31 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 19:35:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard Message-ID: Interstellar Travel is Hard Published by Steven Novella Jan 7, 2022 There are many possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox, ways of resolving the apparent contradiction, and many of them have merit. But I think a sufficient explanation is simply that interstellar travel is really hard. So at best even an advanced civilization might come up with an interstellar ship that can manage 20-50% the speed of light and require tremendous resources. Interstellar travel may simply seem not worth it. Further, if you want to transport actual living beings through interstellar space the challenge is orders of magnitude more difficult. ----------------- This is a rather pessimistic view (realistic??) about travel to the stars. But he does discuss most of the options. BillK From dsunley at gmail.com Fri Jan 7 19:49:14 2022 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 12:49:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yeah, flying a computer interstellar distances that can run a human-level AGI is one thing. Getting canned monkeys anywhere intact is orders of magnitude more difficult. On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 12:38 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Interstellar Travel is Hard > Published by Steven Novella Jan 7, 2022 > > There are many possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox, ways of > resolving the apparent contradiction, and many of them have merit. > But I think a sufficient explanation is simply that interstellar travel is > really hard. > > < > https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/interstellar-travel-is-hard/ > > > > So at best even an advanced civilization might come up with an > interstellar ship that can manage 20-50% the speed of light and > require tremendous resources. > Interstellar travel may simply seem not worth it. > > Further, if you want to transport actual living beings through > interstellar space the challenge is orders of magnitude more > difficult. > ----------------- > > This is a rather pessimistic view (realistic??) about travel to the stars. > But he does discuss most of the options. > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 7 19:54:23 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 11:54:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00b601d80400$5e8c3e30$1ba4ba90$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard Interstellar Travel is Hard Published by Steven Novella Jan 7, 2022 ... https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/interstellar-travel-is-hard/ ... ----------------- >...This is a rather pessimistic view (realistic??) about travel to the stars. But he does discuss most of the options. BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, I think he is right however. I do accept the speed of light as an absolute limit with no cheating or getting around it. I could be wrong, hope I am, fear I am not. spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 00:59:25 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 19:59:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Low Omicron numbers in China Message-ID: Just posted this on Zvi Mowshowitz's blog: It's worth noting that the CCP staked a strong claim to being superior to other governments on their ability to contain the virus they deny having made. Their 50-cent army of propagandists have been incessantly crowing about how great the CCP is for being able to effectively stamp out the virus that brought the mighty US down. There is a lot of face to be lost if this achievement was to fail in a visible way, and in China face is everything. And of course the CCP can also fake almost every number that comes out of China. Given the above I would not be surprised if their currently low numbers were a stage of denial, when there is already enough Omicron going around but still low enough to pretend that containment works. At some point the mass infection wave might become impossible to hide but even then they might just stop testing and pretend it's just some sniffles, not the big bad Covid. A lot of strange things can happen in China. -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 01:10:47 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 20:10:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 2:38 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Interstellar Travel is Hard > Published by Steven Novella Jan 7, 2022 > > There are many possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox, ways of > resolving the apparent contradiction, and many of them have merit. > But I think a sufficient explanation is simply that interstellar travel is > really hard. > > < > https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/interstellar-travel-is-hard/ > > > > So at best even an advanced civilization might come up with an > interstellar ship that can manage 20-50% the speed of light and > require tremendous resources. > Interstellar travel may simply seem not worth it. > ### It's similar to the problem of people who feel that having babies is simply not worth it. No matter how many of such people are there now, in about 122 years none of them matter any more but the descendants of the few who thought otherwise end up inheriting the empty cities. Just one civilization that likes the idea of spreading and develops the technology is enough to change its light-cone. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 01:49:36 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 20:49:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen Message-ID: AGI must be able to match the average human in all intellectual endeavors to be worth being called a human-level AGI. Various aspects of human cognition have been solved by narrow AIs in the past 25 years and year by year the number of tasks where humans still beat AI is getting smaller. In many of these narrow tasks the AI doesn't just match human ability but rather it beats humans by completely inhuman margins. The first AI that checks off the last box on the list of human capabilities to beat will be the AGI, the holy grail - but most of the capabilities it inherited from earlier iterations will be strongly superhuman. So the first AGI will actually be the first superhuman AGI, not human-level AGI. To bring it down to human level you would have to handicap it harshly, and I can't think of a reasonable use-case for such a digital cripple. Therefore, human-level AGI will never happen. QED. Unless it is made as some sort of a sick joke. -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 05:19:57 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 00:19:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yeah but the first superhuman-level AGI will probably ask the second superhuman-level AGI to prom and get rejected On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 8:50 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > AGI must be able to match the average human in all intellectual endeavors > to be worth being called a human-level AGI. Various aspects of human > cognition have been solved by narrow AIs in the past 25 years and year by > year the number of tasks where humans still beat AI is getting smaller. In > many of these narrow tasks the AI doesn't just match human ability but > rather it beats humans by completely inhuman margins. The first AI that > checks off the last box on the list of human capabilities to beat will be > the AGI, the holy grail - but most of the capabilities it inherited from > earlier iterations will be strongly superhuman. So the first AGI will > actually be the first superhuman AGI, not human-level AGI. To bring it down > to human level you would have to handicap it harshly, and I can't think of > a reasonable use-case for such a digital cripple. > > Therefore, human-level AGI will never happen. QED. > > Unless it is made as some sort of a sick joke. > > -- > 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 steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 05:21:04 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 00:21:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Low Omicron numbers in China In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 8:00 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > At some point the mass infection wave might become impossible to hide but > even then they might just stop testing and pretend it's just some sniffles, > not the big bad Covid. > God can we just start doing that here now? Lol -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 8 05:29:52 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 21:29:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002001d80450$c3dc2930$4b947b90$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen >?Yeah but the first superhuman-level AGI will probably ask the second superhuman-level AGI to prom and get rejected That?s the pessimistic view. Optimistic view: the first and second super human AGIs will get into contests with each other to see which is smarter. That should be interesting to watch, and furthermore it would give us an answer to the new question: OK what are humans for now? Answer: to watch and cheer the AGI smartness contests. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 8 05:35:32 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 21:35:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen In-Reply-To: <002001d80450$c3dc2930$4b947b90$@rainier66.com> References: <002001d80450$c3dc2930$4b947b90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002c01d80451$8e1d8130$aa588390$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen ?> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen >?Yeah but the first superhuman-level AGI will probably ask the second superhuman-level AGI to prom and get rejected >?That?s the pessimistic view. Optimistic view: the first and second super human AGIs will get into contests with each other to see which is smarter. That should be interesting to watch, and furthermore it would give us an answer to the new question: OK what are humans for now? Answer: to watch and cheer the AGI smartness contests. spike Oh, and one more thing, in case you were celebrating that we may eventually come up with an answer to the age-old question regarding the meaning of life. If one takes an area of tradition human intellectual activity, such as chess, no one is likely to argue with anyone who says we have software capable of beating any human under any conditions. So we have superhuman software already in chess. If one looks at the world championship computer chess matches and follows some of the games, that would be analogous to humans cheering for AGI smartness contests. But even a good chess player is baffled by many, if not most, of the moves the software chooses. We can see their plans worked out, but we don?t understand why. If the first and second AGI were to have a smartness contest, we might not understand it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 8 07:08:48 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2022 23:08:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] book review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d8045e$96203640$c260a2c0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] book review >?Blueprint: the evolutionary origins of a good society - Nicholas Christakis - M.D. Ph. D. Harvard ? bill w I read most of Christakis? book and agree with billw: it?s good. I was in a hurry and skimmed parts of it. A bit of a slow starter as Bill pointed out. Fun aside: a bit over 2 yrs ago (before covid started) Blueprint was hot off the press. I was in Denver at a wedding. Being an early riser, I went downstairs in the hotel and met a man, struck up a conversation. He was about 50, hard hard core social justice warrior. I found him most pleasant and entertaining, so I kept asking questions and letting him do most of the talking, which he was happy to do. The interesting part about this was he hated insurance companies, hated the concept of insurance, health insurance in particular, which is so strange because he worked for a health insurance company. I have no heartburn with the concept at all. What made that whole discussion so interesting is that this guy was attacking his own industry as I (kinda halfheartedly) defended. Further irony: the young lady whose wedding I was attending works for the hospital system in getting insurance companies to pay the bills. He was reading Blueprint. So? I ordered a copy of it, liked it. I am not endorsing all of Cristakis? notions, just that I found the book and the deeply conflicted insurance exec most interesting. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 08:36:28 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 00:36:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Unstated assumption #1: human capabilities are a finite checklist that can be performed by AIs, one by one, using architectures that are able to inherit the capabilities of previous AIs. Unstated assumption #2: previous AIs will not merge into humans in a way that dramatically boosts "human-level" intellectual performance and thus the requirements for an AI to be generally considered an AGI. Granted, this is a form of moving the goalposts, but if the goal is to reach whatever is thought of as "human-level" at the time, that goal has moved over time before. On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 5:51 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > AGI must be able to match the average human in all intellectual endeavors > to be worth being called a human-level AGI. Various aspects of human > cognition have been solved by narrow AIs in the past 25 years and year by > year the number of tasks where humans still beat AI is getting smaller. In > many of these narrow tasks the AI doesn't just match human ability but > rather it beats humans by completely inhuman margins. The first AI that > checks off the last box on the list of human capabilities to beat will be > the AGI, the holy grail - but most of the capabilities it inherited from > earlier iterations will be strongly superhuman. So the first AGI will > actually be the first superhuman AGI, not human-level AGI. To bring it down > to human level you would have to handicap it harshly, and I can't think of > a reasonable use-case for such a digital cripple. > > Therefore, human-level AGI will never happen. QED. > > Unless it is made as some sort of a sick joke. > > -- > 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 8 14:03:13 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 08:03:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] book review In-Reply-To: <000001d8045e$96203640$c260a2c0$@rainier66.com> References: <000001d8045e$96203640$c260a2c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: So, Spike, did you find any of Blueprints' ideas objectionable? bill w On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 1:11 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] book review > > > > >?Blueprint: the evolutionary origins of a good society - Nicholas > Christakis - M.D. Ph. D. Harvard ? bill w > > > > I read most of Christakis? book and agree with billw: it?s good. I was in > a hurry and skimmed parts of it. A bit of a slow starter as Bill pointed > out. > > > > Fun aside: a bit over 2 yrs ago (before covid started) Blueprint was hot > off the press. I was in Denver at a wedding. Being an early riser, I went > downstairs in the hotel and met a man, struck up a conversation. He was > about 50, hard hard core social justice warrior. I found him most pleasant > and entertaining, so I kept asking questions and letting him do most of the > talking, which he was happy to do. > > > > The interesting part about this was he hated insurance companies, hated > the concept of insurance, health insurance in particular, which is so > strange because he worked for a health insurance company. I have no > heartburn with the concept at all. What made that whole discussion so > interesting is that this guy was attacking his own industry as I (kinda > halfheartedly) defended. Further irony: the young lady whose wedding I was > attending works for the hospital system in getting insurance companies to > pay the bills. > > > > He was reading Blueprint. So? I ordered a copy of it, liked it. I am not > endorsing all of Cristakis? notions, just that I found the book and the > deeply conflicted insurance exec most interesting. > > > > 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 Sat Jan 8 14:08:41 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 14:08:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 01:13, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > > Just one civilization that likes the idea of spreading and develops the technology is enough to change its light-cone. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ 'Liking' or 'wishing' won't change the laws of the universe. So if interstellar travel is impossible, it will remain impossible no matter how many resources are thrown at the problem. Therefore the alternative is that interstellar travel is so difficult and so expensive in resources that while theoretically possible, it becomes impossible in practice. Humans have arrived quite late in the universe development so the chance of other intelligent civilisations arising before us is rather high also. But looking around, we see nothing unnatural appearing in our galaxy. So nobody else has so far decided that spamming the galaxy or re-engineering the galaxy is a good idea. We could be the first! Interstellar travel will require the resources of (at least) a nation, plus more advanced technology than we have at present. AGI will probably arrive before advanced space technology and that may cause the famous Singularity to happen. Will posthumans think that colonising the galaxy is the best way to spend resources? They are supposed to be highly intelligent after all, with the advanced knowledge to do almost anything they desire. Running the Metaverse with universal uploading and eternal life may be much more preferable. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 8 14:48:05 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 06:48:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002501d8049e$beeee220$3ccca660$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen // >?Unstated assumption #2: previous AIs will not merge into humans in a way that dramatically boosts "human-level" intellectual performance and thus the requirements for an AI to be generally considered an AGI. Granted, this is a form of moving the goalposts? spike Ja. We used to program computers. Now they program us. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 8 15:08:53 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 07:08:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] book review In-Reply-To: References: <000001d8045e$96203640$c260a2c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004a01d804a1$a6b16900$f4143b00$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] book review >?So, Spike, did you find any of Blueprints' ideas objectionable? bill w Eh, not really, not so much ideas specifically objectionable, no. In general the author carries a set of assumptions that differ from my own, similar to the guy I met at the hotel who was reading it. This is perfectly OK, and preferrable, for many, or perhaps most of my favorite writers do. Reading from another perspective clarifies my own perspective. It was a little like listening to NPR about 20 years ago. I liked NPR before they went kinda crazy in the last five to ten years. Let us take a trivial example please, one which isn?t a book but a film most of us have seen at some point or another. Consider It?s a Wonderful Life, the Christmas classic with Jimmy Stewart. One can view it as the stingy old capitalist scrooge character Mr. Potter who wanted to own everything (and did a terrific impersonation of Simon bar Sinister) vs the gentle and kind communist George Bailey, who just wanted everyone to have a piece of the pie, to each according to the Marxist ideal. Capitalism vs communism story with the commies being the good guys ja? So? why did I like that one? Because it promoted the kind of communism which doesn?t involve government. In Wonderful Life, government never came into the picture at all, other than kind and gentle Bert the cop and the feds who were coming to get George before the community rallied to cover his debt. If communities find a way to work together to take care of everybody, to supply to each according to their need without compulsion, then you don?t need government involvement. Then by all means, do go right ahead. If you get that working, I will move to Bedford Falls and happily live out my life there. Both Bailey and Potter were capitalists. I saw the two characters as representing government in a way, and it was libertarianism vs Potter?s totalitarian rule. So? we see every work of fiction thru our own filters. This goes for non-fiction such as Blueprint as well. As I read it, I couldn?t help imagining the conflicted insurance agent I met at the hotel as the author. That made me smile to imagine someone a book expressing one?s internal struggle with cognitive dissonance. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 15:12:25 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 09:12:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen In-Reply-To: <002501d8049e$beeee220$3ccca660$@rainier66.com> References: <002501d8049e$beeee220$3ccca660$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Is the ability to use logic and be very fast the be-all end-all of intelligence and personality? If it is, the AIs will be the perfect humans. Is there more to that in being human? bill w On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 8:50 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen > > // > > > > >?Unstated assumption #2: previous AIs will not merge into humans in a way > that dramatically boosts "human-level" intellectual performance and thus > the requirements for an AI to be generally considered an AGI. Granted, > this is a form of moving the goalposts? spike > > > > > > Ja. We used to program computers. Now they program us. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 8 15:18:51 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 07:18:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005101d804a3$0b3458f0$219d0ad0$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ >... So nobody else has so far decided that spamming the galaxy or re-engineering the galaxy is a good idea. We could be the first! Oh my, can you even imagine the potential market sitting there just waiting patiently to be exploited? The first-to-market advantage is calling us BillK. The money to be made here, oh it makes my butt hurt. >... Will posthumans think that colonising the galaxy is the best way to spend resources? Eh, think of it as investing resources. >... They are supposed to be highly intelligent after all, with the advanced knowledge to do almost anything they desire. Running the Metaverse with universal uploading and eternal life may be much more preferable. BillK _______________________________________________ I have long considered that the best explanation for Fermi's paradox. They don't communicate with us because interstellar travel really is just too difficult, they can't come here and (because of the time delays) they can't really carry on trade. So... it isn't worth expending the resources to do interstellar communications. It is too much like writing textbooks for which you will not be paid. The problem with that theory is that on a very rare occasion, we do get a person who will write a textbook (or make instructional videos) without being paid, such as Sal Khan. Of course he eventually did get paid, but he has convinced me that isn't why he quit a very lucrative job and started what he does now. Somewhere out there, some advanced civilization might be transmitting an interstellar Khan Academy, which is why I have supported SETI all these years. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 16:44:12 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 16:44:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: <005101d804a3$0b3458f0$219d0ad0$@rainier66.com> References: <005101d804a3$0b3458f0$219d0ad0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 15:23, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > I have long considered that the best explanation for Fermi's paradox. They > don't communicate with us because interstellar travel really is just too > difficult, they can't come here and (because of the time delays) they can't > really carry on trade. So... it isn't worth expending the resources to do > interstellar communications. It is too much like writing textbooks for > which you will not be paid. > > The problem with that theory is that on a very rare occasion, we do get a > person who will write a textbook (or make instructional videos) without > being paid, such as Sal Khan. Of course he eventually did get paid, but he > has convinced me that isn't why he quit a very lucrative job and started > what he does now. Somewhere out there, some advanced civilization might be > transmitting an interstellar Khan Academy, which is why I have supported > SETI all these years. > > spike > _______________________________________________ One problem with interstellar communication is time delay - even at the speed of light. Another problem is knowing what level your possible audience is at and how to communicate with them. No point in sending nanotech lessons to primitive races. For more advanced races (like humans) you run into ethical problems because giving advanced tech to them is like giving guns to children to play with. It would probably destroy them. Another problem is broadcasting your existence to even more advanced races may not be a wise move. I think advanced races probably think it safer to let other races develop at their own speed. :) BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 8 17:21:52 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 09:21:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: <005101d804a3$0b3458f0$219d0ad0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009b01d804b4$3a977b20$afc67160$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat ... > _______________________________________________ >...One problem with interstellar communication is time delay - even at the speed of light. Another problem is knowing what level your possible audience is at and how to communicate with them. No point in sending nanotech lessons to primitive races. For more advanced races (like humans) you run into ethical problems because giving advanced tech to them is like giving guns to children to play with. It would probably destroy them. Another problem is broadcasting your existence to even more advanced races may not be a wise move. I think advanced races probably think it safer to let other races develop at their own speed. :) BillK _______________________________________________ Ja to all, but something still puzzles me: the apparently universal lack of exceptions. We are a species that intentionally blasted a signal into space at the quietest frequency in the galaxy, with no known recipients, without regard to the potential damage or benefit it would cause. IN 1974, we sent them this: At the time it was sent, there was much debate over whether aliens would understand the message. But it is perfectly clear to me what it means, because I am such hipster (or rather I was (in 1974 (when the message was sent.))) Immediately when I see that, it is clear that we are telling the ETI how cool we are because of our hipster video games. We show them in white up top that we have Brick Out, then below that in green is Digital Battleship, then below that is a picture of a flute, so they know we also have high-brow analog devices along with our video games, and in blue we have sideways oceans (depending on how you look at them) and best of all, we have Space Invaders. Ordinarily in that game, the human is below, firing at the aliens coming down from above, but since they are the Space Invaders, then from their revolting point of view, they are the purple guy down there standing in the puddle of spilled milk (or playing Brick Out) and we are up above (in red) threatening that if they get any big ideas about invading, we whack them with that gnarly yellow shillelagh. Did anyone have any other interpretations of the message? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 20907 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 18:45:17 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 10:45:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: <005101d804a3$0b3458f0$219d0ad0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 8:46 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > For more advanced races (like humans) you run into ethical problems > because giving advanced tech to them is like giving guns to children > to play with. It would probably destroy them. > Or you deliberately do that as a filter, intending that most of the recipients wipe themselves out before they spread beyond their home system. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 22:54:08 2022 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 17:54:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: <009b01d804b4$3a977b20$afc67160$@rainier66.com> References: <005101d804a3$0b3458f0$219d0ad0$@rainier66.com> <009b01d804b4$3a977b20$afc67160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 8, 2022, 12:24 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > IN 1974, we sent them this: > > I assume thats a start position for GoL and the message is self evident after a few thousand iterations of the rules. :) > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 20907 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 8 23:17:42 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 15:17:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: <005101d804a3$0b3458f0$219d0ad0$@rainier66.com> <009b01d804b4$3a977b20$afc67160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001a01d804e5$f0126970$d0373c50$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard On Sat, Jan 8, 2022, 12:24 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: >>?IN 1974, we sent them this: >?I assume thats a start position for GoL and the message is self evident after a few thousand iterations of the rules. :) Oh well, Mike that is clearly a humanistic interpretation. We must avoid the pitfalls of assuming aliens would recognize such a thing, considering they may prefer chess to Go. I am staying with the Brick Out/Flute/Space Invaders/Shillelagh school of thought on that. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 05:44:03 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 00:44:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Low Omicron numbers in China In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 12:21 AM Will Steinberg wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 8:00 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> At some point the mass infection wave might become impossible to hide >> but even then they might just stop testing and pretend it's just some >> sniffles, not the big bad Covid. >> > > God can we just start doing that here now? Lol > ### Indeed. All this testing at home and everywhere doesn't make any sense. Only patients with risk factors who are presenting to the hospital with significant symptoms should be tested, since it impacts the therapeutic options if positive. However, I predict that the business of selling Covid tests will be still brisk for a long time. Two years of brainwashing doesn't just go away, it lingers in the minds of the impressionable. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 06:03:15 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 01:03:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 9:12 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 01:13, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Just one civilization that likes the idea of spreading and develops the > technology is enough to change its light-cone. > > > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > > > 'Liking' or 'wishing' won't change the laws of the universe. > So if interstellar travel is impossible, it will remain impossible no > matter how many resources are thrown at the problem. > ### Interstellar travel is possible. Obviously. ----------------------------- > Therefore the alternative is that interstellar travel is so difficult > and so expensive in resources that while theoretically possible, it > becomes impossible in practice. > ### It is possible in practice. We already have most of the technologies needed for it, the price of space travel is going to go down by at least two orders of magnitude soon, and additional technologies that are almost guaranteed to happen will make interstellar travel widely accessible, as per my analysis of existing trends. It would be also silly to think that all other civilizations in the universe are less lucky or in other ways prevented from progressing beyond our current capabilities. If we, after only 50 years in space, can almost do it, then other civilizations can definitely do it, after 500 or 5000 years of additional technological development. ---------------------------- > Humans have arrived quite late in the universe development ### No, we are most likely very, very early. Otherwise we would see a universe filled with other civs. > so the > chance of other intelligent civilisations arising before us is rather > high also. But looking around, we see nothing unnatural appearing in > our galaxy. So nobody else has so far decided that spamming the galaxy > or re-engineering the galaxy is a good idea. We could be the first! > ### That's the only explanation that makes sense to me. > > Interstellar travel will require the resources of (at least) a nation, > plus more advanced technology than we have at present. AGI will > probably arrive before advanced space technology and that may cause > the famous Singularity to happen. Will posthumans think that > colonising the galaxy is the best way to spend resources? They are > supposed to be highly intelligent after all, with the advanced > knowledge to do almost anything they desire. Running the Metaverse > with universal uploading and eternal life may be much more preferable. > > ### As I said, just one group who likes to travel, out of thousands who like to navel-gaze, collapses this line of argument. It's just like when a bacterial culture in a small flask with 10e7 cells is exposed to antibiotic - even if 99.9999% are sensitive, you are guaranteed to have a thick broth of bacteria descended from the remaining 0.0001% filling the flask in a couple of days. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 06:11:35 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 01:11:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 3:38 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Unstated assumption #1: human capabilities are a finite checklist that can > be performed by AIs, one by one, using architectures that are able to > inherit the capabilities of previous AIs. > ### Well, one way of checking off all boxes of a human to-do list, whether finite or infinite, is to have a faithful emulation of the doer inside the AI. AI can interrogate its model human to give human level answers to all challenges if needed, without giving up its various superhuman capabilities. ---------------------- > > Unstated assumption #2: previous AIs will not merge into humans in a way > that dramatically boosts "human-level" intellectual performance and thus > the requirements for an AI to be generally considered an AGI. Granted, > this is a form of moving the goalposts, but if the goal is to reach > whatever is thought of as "human-level" at the time, that goal has moved > over time before. > ### Well, yeah, this is definitely moving the goalposts quite dramatically. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 06:28:09 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2022 22:28:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Human-level AGI will never happen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 10:13 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 3:38 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Unstated assumption #1: human capabilities are a finite checklist that >> can be performed by AIs, one by one, using architectures that are able to >> inherit the capabilities of previous AIs. >> > > ### Well, one way of checking off all boxes of a human to-do list > Part of the assumption is that it consists of a list of boxes that can be checked off. > Unstated assumption #2: previous AIs will not merge into humans in a way >> that dramatically boosts "human-level" intellectual performance and thus >> the requirements for an AI to be generally considered an AGI. Granted, >> this is a form of moving the goalposts, but if the goal is to reach >> whatever is thought of as "human-level" at the time, that goal has moved >> over time before. >> > > ### Well, yeah, this is definitely moving the goalposts quite dramatically. > Granted. But have not these particular goalposts been in motion all along? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 06:35:12 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 17:35:12 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Low Omicron numbers in China In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 12:01, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Just posted this on Zvi Mowshowitz's blog: > > It's worth noting that the CCP staked a strong claim to being superior to > other governments on their ability to contain the virus they deny having > made. Their 50-cent army of propagandists have been incessantly crowing > about how great the CCP is for being able to effectively stamp out the > virus that brought the mighty US down. There is a lot of face to be lost if > this achievement was to fail in a visible way, and in China face is > everything. And of course the CCP can also fake almost every number that > comes out of China. > > Given the above I would not be surprised if their currently low numbers > were a stage of denial, when there is already enough Omicron going around > but still low enough to pretend that containment works. At some point the > mass infection wave might become impossible to hide but even then they > might just stop testing and pretend it's just some sniffles, not the big > bad Covid. > > A lot of strange things can happen in China. > It?s not impossible that they actually have low numbers. The state of Western Australia has very low COVID numbers, around a dozen a day, while other Australian states around it in the last few weeks have had daily numbers in the thousands, and in the past week in the tens of thousands. This is with travel restrictions and quarantine requirements from other states and overseas, even though it has a ~2,000 km long mostly unpoliced border with COVID affected states, and people slip through on a regular basis. The West Australians? problem is now is how long to continue their isolation from the rest of the world. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 10:53:04 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 05:53:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Low Omicron numbers in China In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 1:35 AM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 12:01, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Just posted this on Zvi Mowshowitz's blog: >> >> It's worth noting that the CCP staked a strong claim to being superior to >> other governments on their ability to contain the virus they deny having >> made. Their 50-cent army of propagandists have been incessantly crowing >> about how great the CCP is for being able to effectively stamp out the >> virus that brought the mighty US down. There is a lot of face to be lost if >> this achievement was to fail in a visible way, and in China face is >> everything. And of course the CCP can also fake almost every number that >> comes out of China. >> >> Given the above I would not be surprised if their currently low numbers >> were a stage of denial, when there is already enough Omicron going around >> but still low enough to pretend that containment works. At some point the >> mass infection wave might become impossible to hide but even then they >> might just stop testing and pretend it's just some sniffles, not the big >> bad Covid. >> >> A lot of strange things can happen in China. >> > > It?s not impossible that they actually have low numbers. The state of > Western Australia has very low COVID numbers, around a dozen a day, while > other Australian states around it in the last few weeks have had daily > numbers in the thousands, and in the past week in the tens of thousands. > This is with travel restrictions and quarantine requirements from other > states and overseas, even though it has a ~2,000 km long mostly unpoliced > border with COVID affected states, and people slip through on a regular > basis. The West Australians? problem is now is how long to continue their > isolation from the rest of the world. > >> > ### Every thousand additional people in the community and every increase in R0 make it exponentially more difficult to contain an epidemic. What was possible for the Alpha variant in China and Australia became very difficult for the Delta variant and completely impossible for the Omicron variant. Containment on an isolated island may be possible (as long as you keep it isolated forever) but it's impossible with 1,170 million people, including hundreds of millions in high-density cities, even if you weld people shut in their homes. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 14:38:32 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 14:38:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Jan 2022 at 06:05, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > > > ### As I said, just one group who likes to travel, out of thousands who like to navel-gaze, collapses this line of argument. > > It's just like when a bacterial culture in a small flask with 10e7 cells is exposed to antibiotic - even if 99.9999% are sensitive, you are guaranteed to have a thick broth of bacteria descended from the remaining 0.0001% filling the flask in a couple of days. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ Your example is correct for those circumstances, but I don't think it can be applied to existential crises on planetary populations or interstellar travel. Looking back over millions of years it appears to us that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. But it wasn't really like that. The asteroid set off a chain of disasters that gradually over many years reduced numbers until survival became impossible. For an interstellar ship traveling at 20% of lightspeed the journey will be long, probably over 20 years just to the nearest star. A lot can go wrong in 20 years. Cosmic ray damage, supplies running out, machine breakdown, medical problems, etc. Hitting a speck of dust at that speed is problematic. And it won't be just one speck of dust and some of the specks of dust might be small rocks. Existential survival is not a one and done exercise. You have to survive emergencies again and again. That's what I mean when I say interstellar travel is really hard. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 14:51:14 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 14:51:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] AI replacing more human workers Message-ID: AI is quietly eating up the world?s workforce with job automation Valerias Bangert January 8, 2022 Quotes: AI job automation: The debate around whether AI will automate jobs away is heating up. AI critics claim that these statistical models lack the creativity and intuition of human workers and that they are thus doomed to specific, repetitive tasks. However, this pessimism fundamentally underestimates the power of AI. While AI job automation has already replaced around 400,000 factory jobs in the U.S. from 1990 to 2007, with another 2 million on the way, AI today is automating the economy in a much more subtle way. --------- The examples given so far are just the tip of the iceberg. AI is automating jobs away in virtually every sector and industry. While this might seem like cause for alarm, it?s actually long overdue news. The fact is, we?ve been living in a world where machines have been slowly replacing human workers for centuries. What?s new is the pace of this automation. Machines are now becoming faster, better, and cheaper than humans at an alarming rate. As a result, we?re seeing a fundamental shift in the economy where machines are starting to do the creative jobs of human beings. --------------------------- BillK From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 18:10:12 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 10:10:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] AI replacing more human workers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 6:53 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Machines are now becoming > faster, better, > harder, stronger? :P -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Jan 9 22:46:01 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2022 22:46:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Linden: The Case Against Death In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <858e7466-9fc4-d799-c0e4-3df460110d25@zaiboc.net> This might interest some of you. "The Case Against Death" by Ingemar Patrick Linden. https://mitpress.mit.edu/contributors/ingemar-patrick-linden Ben From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 10 15:19:52 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 15:19:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There are now 69 comments on the original article. They are worth reading to see the discussion between the pro and anti interstellar travel groups. BillK On Fri, 7 Jan 2022 at 19:35, BillK wrote: > > Interstellar Travel is Hard > Published by Steven Novella Jan 7, 2022 > > There are many possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox, ways of > resolving the apparent contradiction, and many of them have merit. > But I think a sufficient explanation is simply that interstellar travel is > really hard. > > > > So at best even an advanced civilization might come up with an > interstellar ship that can manage 20-50% the speed of light and > require tremendous resources. > Interstellar travel may simply seem not worth it. > > Further, if you want to transport actual living beings through > interstellar space the challenge is orders of magnitude more > difficult. > ----------------- > > This is a rather pessimistic view (realistic??) about travel to the stars. > But he does discuss most of the options. > > BillK From dsunley at gmail.com Mon Jan 10 19:36:32 2022 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 12:36:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Linden: The Case Against Death In-Reply-To: <858e7466-9fc4-d799-c0e4-3df460110d25@zaiboc.net> References: <858e7466-9fc4-d799-c0e4-3df460110d25@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Todd May got a whole tv series (or at least it's finale arc) dramatic adaptation of his pro-death book. Which producer do we need to bribe to get a pro-immortality pitch into popular culture? On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 6:40 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > This might interest some of you. > "The Case Against Death" by Ingemar Patrick Linden. > > https://mitpress.mit.edu/contributors/ingemar-patrick-linden > > Ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 10 22:12:37 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 14:12:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007f01d8066f$2dcd37b0$8967a710$@rainier66.com> ....> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Sent: Monday, January 10, 2022 7:20 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard There are now 69 comments on the original article. They are worth reading to see the discussion between the pro and anti interstellar travel groups. BillK BillK, it is all about nanotech. If we can figure out how to create a replicating assembler, we can use standard propulsion technology that we have had for most of a century, go ahead and take a thousand years to get to the nearest star, or ten thousand (keeping in mind we hafta somehow slow back down when we arrive) then if we find stuff there we nanotech ourselves back up to meter scale if we wish. The missing tech is how to get ourselves, or the part we care about, down to the micrometer scale, and verify that our sentience is not substrate dependent (I think consciousness is substrate independent, but I can't say I know that for certain.) spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 10 22:34:16 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 22:34:16 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: <007f01d8066f$2dcd37b0$8967a710$@rainier66.com> References: <007f01d8066f$2dcd37b0$8967a710$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Jan 2022 at 22:15, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > BillK, it is all about nanotech. If we can figure out how to create a > replicating assembler, we can use standard propulsion technology that we > have had for most of a century, go ahead and take a thousand years to get to > the nearest star, or ten thousand (keeping in mind we hafta somehow slow > back down when we arrive) then if we find stuff there we nanotech ourselves > back up to meter scale if we wish. > > The missing tech is how to get ourselves, or the part we care about, down to > the micrometer scale, and verify that our sentience is not substrate > dependent (I think consciousness is substrate independent, but I can't say I > know that for certain.) > > spike > _______________________________________________ If we can achieve the nanotech capability that you describe........ well, that gives us God-like power to do almost anything! So, I doubt whether that will be possible. If it is possible, then reconstructing ourselves and our Solar System will probably be first on the list. Interstellar travel will be way down the to-do list, if ever. Going nano may be too much fun. :) BillK From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 10 23:13:07 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 15:13:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: <007f01d8066f$2dcd37b0$8967a710$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009e01d80677$a1058cc0$e310a640$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Sent: Monday, January 10, 2022 2:34 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard On Mon, 10 Jan 2022 at 22:15, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > BillK, it is all about nanotech. If we can figure out how to create a > replicating assembler, we can use standard propulsion technology that > we have had for most of a century, go ahead and take a thousand years > to get to the nearest star, or ten thousand (keeping in mind we hafta > somehow slow back down when we arrive) then if we find stuff there we > nanotech ourselves back up to meter scale if we wish. > > The missing tech is how to get ourselves, or the part we care about, > down to the micrometer scale, and verify that our sentience is not > substrate dependent (I think consciousness is substrate independent, > but I can't say I know that for certain.) > > spike > _______________________________________________ If we can achieve the nanotech capability that you describe........ well, that gives us God-like power to do almost anything! So, I doubt whether that will be possible. If it is possible, then reconstructing ourselves and our Solar System will probably be first on the list. Interstellar travel will be way down the to-do list, if ever. Going nano may be too much fun. :) BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, I made a similar argument on this forum 25 yrs ago when we used to discuss nanotech a lot (that was before we knew how difficult it is to make a covalent bond without excessive entropy production.) If we figure out how to tinkerbellize (I think that was our own Eliezer Yudkowsky who coined that term) then we can downscale several orders of magnitude, then going elsewhere becomes a lot lower priority. If we get that far, we can create so many human-level (or higher) intelligences, that the theoretical signals from out there somewhere become mostly irrelevant, as the writings of 17th century theologians are mostly irrelevant to us today. Those writings are still around, but no one bothers to read them. Likewise, the prospect of going out there becomes less attractive perhaps (but that part I am less sure about (for a tinkerbellized species might still want to spread throughout the galaxy.) spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 11 00:03:56 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 18:03:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] a gmo heart- NYT Message-ID: In a development that could radically transform the outlook for people with failing organs, a 57-year-old man with a life-threatening heart ailment has received a new heart from a genetically modified pig , the first successful transplant of a pig?s heart into a human. The Maryland man would have died had he not received a new heart, and he was too sick to receive a heart from a human donor. His long-term prognosis remains to be seen, but the first 48 hours, which are critical, passed without incident. ?I wasn?t sure he was understanding me,? said the man?s doctor, describing the moment he proposed the procedure. ?Then he said, ?Well, will I oink??? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 11 00:31:49 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 16:31:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] a gmo heart- NYT In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003c01d80682$a00d4910$e027db30$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] a gmo heart- NYT In a development that could radically transform the outlook for people with failing organs, a 57-year-old man with a life-threatening heart ailment has received a new heart from a genetically modified pig, the first successful transplant of a pig?s heart into a human. The Maryland man would have died had he not received a new heart, and he was too sick to receive a heart from a human donor. His long-term prognosis remains to be seen, but the first 48 hours, which are critical, passed without incident. ?I wasn?t sure he was understanding me,? said the man?s doctor, describing the moment he proposed the procedure. ?Then he said, ?Well, will I oink??? This is so cool, I hope they can get it going. We have been using swine heart valves for a long time: my grandmother-in-law had one. It lasted for 11 years, then she perished of something else. Hearts are a bit more forgiving methinks (I am no expert on this matter) compared to kidneys, so I don?t think we can realistically expect this tech to lead to the use of swine kidneys. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Tue Jan 11 14:13:25 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 14:13:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46223b58-6cca-d2a2-3647-bfc2b10507c6@zaiboc.net> On 11/01/2022 00:04, BillK wrote: > If we can achieve the nanotech capability that you describe........ > well, that gives us God-like power to do almost anything! > So, I doubt whether that will be possible. Hmm, I'm not sure that I agree with that conclusion (no, actually, I am sure that I don't agree with it). I don't think the consequences of an ability affects the chances of it being possible. One reason for interstellar colonisation that hasn't been mentioned is maximising your chances of surviving an existential threat (nearby supernovae, dense molecular clouds, your own star misbehaving badly, etc.). If you spread your civilisation (or it's descendant civilisations) all over the galaxy, there's less chance of becoming extinct. If your star turns into a red giant and swallows your planet, then it makes no difference if you take the form of biological critters swarming on the surface, or tinkerbells living as software in a supercomputer buried in the ocean sediment, you're still toast. Ben From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 11 22:35:43 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:35:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mrs. Malaprop strikes again - day one Message-ID: (for oldies, and how true it is!!); "If I only knew now what I knew then." "I am not going to be subversive to any man!" "I would never wear rhinestones unless they were diamonds." "Don't miss it if you can" "I can't stand someone breathing down my throat." "Many are called but few get up." "I only have two pairs of hands." "They are a very combatible couple." "I may be wrong but I'm not far from it." "You can't park there. It's paralyzed parking." "I am barely keeping my feet above water." "Oh well, none of us is human." And a few from my wife (reported several years ago and worth (?)) repeating: It's six of one and one another. It can't help but hurt. She's as short as she is tall. And my favorite of hers: I am having second doubts. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 12 19:06:45 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 13:06:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] just loved this one - bill w Message-ID: Breathe?[image: ??] She sat at the back and they said she was shy. She led from the front and they hated her pride. They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance. They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence. When she shared no ambition they said it was sad. So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad. They told her they'd listen, then covered their ears, And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears, And she listened to all of it thinking she should, Be the girl, they told her, to be best as she could. But one day she asked what was best for herself, Instead of trying to please everyone else. So she walked to the forest and stood with the trees, She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves. She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine, And she told them what she'd been told time after time. She told them she felt she was never enough, She was either too little or far far too much. Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak, Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek. Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs, And she stopped...and she heard what the trees said to her. And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave, For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe? A poem from ?Talking to the Wild: The bedtime stories we never knew we needed? by Becky Hemsley - Talking to the Wild . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 13 20:48:12 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2022 14:48:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] gmo kidney Message-ID: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/xenotransplantation-pig-human-kidney-transplant bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jan 14 05:31:26 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2022 21:31:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] messiah virus Message-ID: <000001d80907$f9f5b480$ede11d80$@rainier66.com> OK well, I am ready to call this good news. If we compare the death rate to the new case rate in Florida in December, it looks a lot like the South Africa experience: they caught the omicron, it appears to be not that different from a seasonal flu in severity. There has been enough time now: a full month since it was very clear that the case rate was rising sharply. In the other three waves, the death rate followed the case rate by about 9 to 13 days. Now we have 30 days behind us on this latest surge, and the reports are fairly consistent: it isn't delta or alpha. The South Africans think the omicron confers not immunity but notable increased resistance to delta and alpha, and if so. we are near the end of this nightmare. The Florida governor did the right thing in keeping everything open, not destroying businesses, not messing up the students. Today the US supreme court decided by 6 to 3 majority that the federal government does not have the authority to mandate a vaccine. That 3 justices disagreed is the part I found most astonishing. I sure don't see anything in the enumerated powers that would suggest the fed can do a workaround using the OSHA to require vaccines. In any case, check out this data from the CDC: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 27822 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 26413 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 00:26:49 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 16:26:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Interstellar Travel is really hard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 6:41 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, 9 Jan 2022 at 06:05, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > > > > ### As I said, just one group who likes to travel, out of thousands who > like to navel-gaze, collapses this line of argument. > > > > It's just like when a bacterial culture in a small flask with 10e7 cells > is exposed to antibiotic - even if 99.9999% are sensitive, you are > guaranteed to have a thick broth of bacteria descended from the remaining > 0.0001% filling the flask in a couple of days. > > > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > > > Your example is correct for those circumstances, but I don't think it > can be applied to existential crises on planetary populations or > interstellar travel. > ### Why not? Where does the analogy break? -------------------------------- > Looking back over millions of years it appears to us that an asteroid > wiped out the dinosaurs. But it wasn't really like that. The asteroid > set off a chain of disasters that gradually over many years reduced > numbers until survival became impossible. > For an interstellar ship traveling at 20% of lightspeed the journey > will be long, probably over 20 years just to the nearest star. A lot > can go wrong in 20 years. Cosmic ray damage, supplies running out, > machine breakdown, medical problems, etc. Hitting a speck of dust at > that speed is problematic. And it won't be just one speck of dust and > some of the specks of dust might be small rocks. > ### Are you saying the *every* starship sent out by millions of civilizations over hundreds of millions of years will inevitably fail? Because if you agree that even a small fraction survives, then the argument is moot - all you need for a galaxy teeming with life is some starships succeeding, not all of them, not even a majority, not even a small minority. All you need is one civilization that develops a method for sending enough ships to enough stellar neighbors to make on average more than one self-sustaining and self-spreading colony from each parental colony, and the rest is inevitable. Also, cosmic ray damage? Supplies running out? Medical problems? How could all civilizations everywhere always be defeated by such predictable and manageable issues? Wouldn't some civilizations build starships designed to withstand cosmic ray damage, with enough supplies and without live crews susceptible to medical issues? > That's what I mean when I say interstellar travel is really hard. > > ### If it's easier than beating the 2nd law of thermodynamics, it will happen, somewhere. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 01:06:34 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 17:06:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Brake lights Message-ID: I keep thinking about how to decelerate a starship at the destination star system enough to allow orbital insertion. Obviously, the amount of energy needed to decelerate a payload will be almost identical to the energy needed for acceleration but deceleration is likely to be much harder than acceleration to achieve technically. Let's assume we want to move the smallest payload sufficient to start a colonization process at a destination star. This would be probably a few grams of self-replicating machinery (nanotech or highly modified biotechnology) capable of photosynthesis in an abiotic planetary environment, and capable of then bootstrapping radio antennas and the computational substrate to receive the colonist minds beamed from the origin star system. The most promising technology to accelerate this kind of payload is laser powered light-sail. One interesting implementation of this idea are small lasers powered by solar arrays that would coordinate to produce massive terawatt beams. These would not have a single origin but rather originate from a swarm distributed over the whole solar system. In this way the extreme acceleration of the payload could be sustained over a long stretch as the payload traverses the laser swarm and receives continuous boost from the swarm elements that are closest to it at the time. This would be much better than a single giant laser that could accelerate payload only for a shorter period of time. Now let's use this distributed swarm to accelerate millions of wafer-ships, each with a built-in solar array, communications and a small laser, similar to the elements of the swarm itself. The waferships would be set to arrive at their destination over a stretch of time. The first-arriving waferships would blip through very fast but during that short time they would use their lasers to slow down the subsequent waferships. Each subsequent wave of ships would be slower, which means they could spend more time beaming lasers to slow down the next wave, until eventually you would have a swarm of stellar-powered small lasers similar to the swarm at the origin system. The payload would be launched with the last wave of waferships, and given the presence of a the distributed laser swarm at destination, such payload could receive the deceleration needed to cancel out its interstellar speed. Of course, the amount of mass needed for the scheme as a whole would be many orders of magnitude larger than the mass of the payload but given the tiny size of the needed payload the overall mass expenditure would most likely not be prohibitive. And of course you could re-use the laser swarms to send payloads in all directions and to send multiple payloads to each system to assure success at every star, no exceptions. Interstellar travel will be easy. -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 10:49:37 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 10:49:37 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Brake lights In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jan 2022 at 10:10, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > > I keep thinking about how to decelerate a starship at the destination star system enough to allow orbital insertion. Obviously, the amount of energy needed to decelerate a payload will be almost identical to the energy needed for acceleration but deceleration is likely to be much harder than acceleration to achieve technically. > > Let's assume we want to move the smallest payload sufficient to start a colonization process at a destination star. This would be probably a few grams of self-replicating machinery (nanotech or highly modified biotechnology) capable of photosynthesis in an abiotic planetary environment, and capable of then bootstrapping radio antennas and the computational substrate to receive the colonist minds beamed from the origin star system. > > The most promising technology to accelerate this kind of payload is laser powered light-sail. One interesting implementation of this idea are small lasers powered by solar arrays that would coordinate to produce massive terawatt beams. These would not have a single origin but rather originate from a swarm distributed over the whole solar system. In this way the extreme acceleration of the payload could be sustained over a long stretch as the payload traverses the laser swarm and receives continuous boost from the swarm elements that are closest to it at the time. This would be much better than a single giant laser that could accelerate payload only for a shorter period of time. > > -- > Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD > Schuyler Biotech PLLC > _______________________________________________ You are describing the ?Breakthrough Starshot? project. This idea has just been reviewed (and the problems listed) by an astro-physicist. As with all space travel enthusiasts, he reaches the conclusion that the problems are probably unsurmountable, but we should try anyway. There is a big difference between solving problems in PowerPoint and virtual reality and actually getting things to work in the harsh environment of the real world. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 15:17:56 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 09:17:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey Message-ID: I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gadersd at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 17:55:11 2022 From: gadersd at gmail.com (Hermes Trismegistus) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 12:55:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <328d5cab-336a-2d6c-a32b-568761c9f857@gmail.com> Here's a full album by Villagers of Ioannina City. The genre is folk rock. Choose any song. They are all great, but my favorite is Cosmic Soul about 50 minutes in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrVmSJ5CHc4 On 1/15/2022 10:17 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's > like.? So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of > whatever genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs > please.? Thanks! 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 sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 19:02:19 2022 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 14:02:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't listen to pop really either. My top ten genres on Spotify are all metal. I recommend Ghost if you're okay with Satan Worship, and Powerwolf if you're not. On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 10:20 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's > like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever > genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! > 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 Sat Jan 15 19:27:09 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 11:27:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003401d80a45$e460a5f0$ad21f1d0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat >? I recommend Ghost if you're okay with Satan Worship? Thanks SR but I am not really a religious type. Funny aside: I told a guy I am an atheist. He asked me a question about worshiping Satan. He was surprised to learn they are not the same, in fact opposites: believing there is no supernatural good guy also takes out the supernatural bad guy. The song which says ??above us only sky?? implies below us only soil. I am told they have some really groovy orgies however. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 19:55:03 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 13:55:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't care about the lyrics - just the music. bill w On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 1:05 PM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I don't listen to pop really either. > > My top ten genres on Spotify are all metal. I recommend Ghost if you're > okay with Satan Worship, and Powerwolf if you're not. > > On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 10:20 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's >> like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever >> genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! >> bill w >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gadersd at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 20:50:49 2022 From: gadersd at gmail.com (Hermes Trismegistus) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 15:50:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <003401d80a45$e460a5f0$ad21f1d0$@rainier66.com> References: <003401d80a45$e460a5f0$ad21f1d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <07cda780-d310-41b1-ad64-cc76c023e0c7@gmail.com> To add to the theme of religious music, how about Helvegen by Wardruna? The English translation of the title is "The path to Hel." It is always good to add a bit of Odin worship to the mix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnkTuHP9q3o On 1/15/2022 2:27 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *SR Ballard via extropy-chat > > ** > > ** > > *>?* I recommend Ghost if you're okay with Satan Worship? > > Thanks SR but I am not really a religious type. > > Funny aside: I told a guy I am an atheist.? He asked me a question > about worshiping Satan. He was surprised to learn they are not the > same, in fact opposites: believing there is no supernatural good guy > also takes out the supernatural bad guy.? The song which says ??above > us only sky?? implies below us only soil. > > I am told they have some really groovy orgies 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 sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 20:52:35 2022 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 15:52:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <003401d80a45$e460a5f0$ad21f1d0$@rainier66.com> References: <003401d80a45$e460a5f0$ad21f1d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <2AFFF6B8-99CB-405C-864F-12775995AD9D@gmail.com> Spike, lol. Most Satanists are atheists anyway. SR Ballard > Em 15 de jan. de 2022, ?(s) 2:29 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat escreveu: > > ? > > > ?> On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat > > > >? I recommend Ghost if you're okay with Satan Worship? > > Thanks SR but I am not really a religious type. > > Funny aside: I told a guy I am an atheist. He asked me a question about worshiping Satan. He was surprised to learn they are not the same, in fact opposites: believing there is no supernatural good guy also takes out the supernatural bad guy. The song which says ??above us only sky?? implies below us only soil. > > I am told they have some really groovy orgies 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 danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 20:59:31 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 12:59:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <82D2EDCD-D70C-4F7B-8E15-627633430190@gmail.com> On Jan 15, 2022, at 7:20 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote:? > I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! bill w I?m not sure if I like as many 90s pop hits. My favorites might be more in the 2000s and 2010s maybe more, but I?d have to listen to some to figure out what I like. Curious why you picked that time and not something more recent. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 21:10:51 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 08:10:51 +1100 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <2AFFF6B8-99CB-405C-864F-12775995AD9D@gmail.com> References: <003401d80a45$e460a5f0$ad21f1d0$@rainier66.com> <2AFFF6B8-99CB-405C-864F-12775995AD9D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2022 at 07:58, SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Spike, lol. Most Satanists are atheists anyway. > They believe that the devil exists but not that God exists? > SR Ballard > > Em 15 de jan. de 2022, ?(s) 2:29 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> escreveu: > > ? > > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *SR Ballard via extropy-chat > > > > *>?* I recommend Ghost if you're okay with Satan Worship? > > > > Thanks SR but I am not really a religious type. > > > > Funny aside: I told a guy I am an atheist. He asked me a question about > worshiping Satan. He was surprised to learn they are not the same, in fact > opposites: believing there is no supernatural good guy also takes out the > supernatural bad guy. The song which says ??above us only sky?? implies > below us only soil. > > > > I am told they have some really groovy orgies however. > > > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gadersd at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 21:27:49 2022 From: gadersd at gmail.com (Hermes Trismegistus) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 16:27:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: <003401d80a45$e460a5f0$ad21f1d0$@rainier66.com> <2AFFF6B8-99CB-405C-864F-12775995AD9D@gmail.com> Message-ID: Satanism typically refers to the movement associated with the Church of Satan. It is a counter cultural atheistic movement. Think of it as a mockery of Christianity with Satan as the symbol. Luciferians are the people who actually believe in Lucifer. The vocalist of Ghost is a Luciferian rather than a Satanist. On 1/15/2022 4:10 PM, Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat wrote: > > > On Sun, 16 Jan 2022 at 07:58, SR Ballard via extropy-chat > wrote: > > Spike, lol. Most Satanists are atheists anyway. > > > They believe that the devil exists but not that God exists? > > > SR Ballard > >> Em 15 de jan. de 2022, ?(s) 2:29 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat >> escreveu: >> >> ? >> >> *?*> *On Behalf Of *SR Ballard via extropy-chat >> >> ** >> >> *>?* I recommend Ghost if you're okay with Satan Worship? >> >> Thanks SR but I am not really a religious type. >> >> Funny aside: I told a guy I am an atheist.? He asked me a >> question about worshiping Satan.? He was surprised to learn they >> are not the same, in fact opposites: believing there is no >> supernatural good guy also takes out the supernatural bad guy.? >> The song which says ??above us only sky?? implies below us only soil. >> >> I am told they have some really groovy orgies however. >> >> 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 > > -- > 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 sen.otaku at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 21:28:27 2022 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 16:28:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Most of them don?t even believe the devil exists, except as a metaphor SR Ballard > Em 15 de jan. de 2022, ?(s) 4:12 PM, Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat escreveu: > > ? > > >> On Sun, 16 Jan 2022 at 07:58, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> Spike, lol. Most Satanists are atheists anyway. > > They believe that the devil exists but not that God exists? > >> >> SR Ballard >> >>> Em 15 de jan. de 2022, ?(s) 2:29 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat escreveu: >>> >>> ? >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ?> On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >? I recommend Ghost if you're okay with Satan Worship? >>> >>> >>> >>> Thanks SR but I am not really a religious type. >>> >>> >>> >>> Funny aside: I told a guy I am an atheist. He asked me a question about worshiping Satan. He was surprised to learn they are not the same, in fact opposites: believing there is no supernatural good guy also takes out the supernatural bad guy. The song which says ??above us only sky?? implies below us only soil. >>> >>> >>> >>> I am told they have some really groovy orgies however. >>> >>> >>> >>> 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 > -- > 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 danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 21:28:58 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 13:28:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 15, 2022, at 1:12 PM, Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat wrote: >> On Sun, 16 Jan 2022 at 07:58, SR Ballard via extropy-chat wrote: >> Spike, lol. Most Satanists are atheists anyway. > > They believe that the devil exists but not that God exists? I believe for many of them it?s just a game ? like cosplay. That said, some people take cosplay fairly seriously. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 22:52:54 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 16:52:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <82D2EDCD-D70C-4F7B-8E15-627633430190@gmail.com> References: <82D2EDCD-D70C-4F7B-8E15-627633430190@gmail.com> Message-ID: 'Post 90s' means from 2090 to now. bill w On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 3:04 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 15, 2022, at 7:20 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:? > > I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's > like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever > genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! > bill w > > > I?m not sure if I like as many 90s pop hits. My favorites might be more in > the 2000s and 2010s maybe more, but I?d have to listen to some to figure > out what I like. > > Curious why you picked that time and not something more recent. > > Regards, > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 15 23:02:26 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 17:02:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] oops Message-ID: 'Post 90s means 'after the 90s'. I don't care how far back you go if popular music 'left' you decades ago. I just want something more recent than the 70s/80s. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 18:12:38 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 10:12:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Brake lights In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 2:52 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, 15 Jan 2022 at 10:10, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > I keep thinking about how to decelerate a starship at the destination > star system enough to allow orbital insertion. Obviously, the amount of > energy needed to decelerate a payload will be almost identical to the > energy needed for acceleration but deceleration is likely to be much harder > than acceleration to achieve technically. > > > > Let's assume we want to move the smallest payload sufficient to start a > colonization process at a destination star. This would be probably a few > grams of self-replicating machinery (nanotech or highly modified > biotechnology) capable of photosynthesis in an abiotic planetary > environment, and capable of then bootstrapping radio antennas and the > computational substrate to receive the colonist minds beamed from the > origin star system. > > > > The most promising technology to accelerate this kind of payload is > laser powered light-sail. One interesting implementation of this idea are > small lasers powered by solar arrays that would coordinate to produce > massive terawatt beams. These would not have a single origin but rather > originate from a swarm distributed over the whole solar system. In this way > the extreme acceleration of the payload could be sustained over a long > stretch as the payload traverses the laser swarm and receives continuous > boost from the swarm elements that are closest to it at the time. This > would be much better than a single giant laser that could accelerate > payload only for a shorter period of time. > > > > > -- > > Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD > > Schuyler Biotech PLLC > > _______________________________________________ > > > You are describing the ?Breakthrough Starshot? project. > > ### No, the Breakthrough Starshot does not mention laser arrays distributed over the whole solar system and does not consider options for deceleration at destination. ------------------------------- > > This idea has just been reviewed (and the problems listed) by an > astro-physicist. > < > https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-could-the-breakthrough-starshot-project-even-survive-its-planned-journey-6f307fdb1aa9 > > > > As with all space travel enthusiasts, he reaches the conclusion that > the problems are probably unsurmountable, but we should try anyway. > ### He is making assumptions about the transfer of energy between dust particles and the starcraft and pulling numbers out of thin air. Also, dumb assumptions about the rest of the mission parameters, like target speed and duration. A billion years is a long time, so a wide range of starcraft speeds can be explored during colonization, and the slowest speeds that still allow interstellar spread throughout the galaxy over tens or hundreds of millions of years are *definitively* achievable using existing or readily conceivable technologies. --------------------- > > There is a big difference between solving problems in PowerPoint and > virtual reality and actually getting things to work in the harsh > environment of the real world. ### There is a big difference between rigorously pointing out physical limitations and making up just-so stories to fit a preconceived conclusion. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 03:39:01 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 19:39:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1A374B85-25AE-4F70-8E89-E3BE77C97DD3@gmail.com> Lol! I misread that as the verb rather than the modifier. So I thought you wanted us to post only 90s pop favorites. ;) (I could blame the original post. ?Post 90s? would?ve been better rendered as ?post-90s?, no?:) So, some of mine are: 7/4 (Shoreline) Broken Social Scene Fall Hard by Shout Out Louds Glow by Ashbury Heights I Saw Her At the Anti-War Demonstration by Jens Lekman Kids by MGMT Knife by Grizzly Bear Like a Wheel by Spissy Like the Moon by Future Islands Lucie, Too by Lucky My Kind of Woman by Mac DeMarco My Smile is Extinct by Kane Strang Myth by Beach House New Slang by The Shins Nothing?s Gonna Hurt You Baby by Cigarettes After Sex Phantasmagoria by Ashbury Heights Reunion by Stars Roosevelt by Montreal Run by AWOLNATION Sail by AWOLNATION Space Song by Beach House Tea-Soaked Letter by Anna Burch Terrified by Among Savages The Trip by Still Corners Using You by Mars Argo We Will Become Silhouettes by The Shins Walk in the Park by Beach House Regards, Dan > On Jan 15, 2022, at 2:55 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > 'Post 90s' means from 2090 to now. bill w > >> On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 3:04 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> On Jan 15, 2022, at 7:20 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote:? >>> I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! bill w >> >> I?m not sure if I like as many 90s pop hits. My favorites might be more in the 2000s and 2010s maybe more, but I?d have to listen to some to figure out what I like. >> >> Curious why you picked that time and not something more recent. >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 18:51:23 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 10:51:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My current favorites, all can be enjoyed at high volumes with the bass cranked up while speeding on the highway: Konx-Om-Pax "Cascada" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fejQRnYcMM Leafcutter John "Yes Come Parade with Us" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaCOvylhxks Lorn "Anvil" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqaAs_3azSs "Sega Sunset" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mauV2NdCs60 Jon Hopkins "Light Through the Veins" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qq_zxDZDXM Hysope "Arandel" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxJ0FyUNwts ?rlige brudefolk and S?nderho Bridal Trilogy - part I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlnqPerqgPw part II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ey_tNIAmRU Also an oldie: Moondog "The Last Concert" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O-B3Eq1m5c May The Gods Bless Spotify! On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 7:20 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's > like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever > genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! > bill w > _______________________________________________ > 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 atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 05:35:31 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 21:35:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't really have a "favorite". What I'm listening to depends on my mood and activity at the time. That said, I often listen to video game music. Fest Zest from Splatoon 2, for instance, is good when I need some upbeat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zthGv7trv8 Or an extended version if I need to will myself out of a funk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx5LhooCraw Other extended tracks have been useful just to have something to drown out the world with while I'm working, such as Knight of the Wind from Sonic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QizrZAZhZY In a non-video-game example, Overdrive from Steam Powered Giraffe has been useful for slowly waking up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAfN2kLhwos And from the same band comes a safety parable for anyone designing anything that might interact with people in space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZb_6_WfquU On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 11:04 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I don't listen to pop really either. > > My top ten genres on Spotify are all metal. I recommend Ghost if you're > okay with Satan Worship, and Powerwolf if you're not. > > On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 10:20 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's >> like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever >> genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! >> bill w >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 11:44:47 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 11:44:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] AI software is now writing the internet Message-ID: Sample description - Finally, an AI that does your writing for you. Say goodbye to writer?s block. With this AI writing assistant, you can generate high-quality, human-level blog posts, landing pages, emails, product descriptions, digital ads and more in seconds. ---------------------- The software is impressive but still needs human editing. Fact-checking is also required. Since it uses the web to create, the more widely covered the topic, the more sources it has to extract information from. However, having more information available also means that more misinformation is also available, making it harder to tell facts from fiction. Pricing can be expensive. It will soon be difficult to tell whether you are talking to or reading posts from a human or AI software. BillK Sample companies: Jarvis AI Grammarly Business Peppertype.ai Writer ContentBot Writesonic ----------------------------------------------------------- From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 15:22:45 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 09:22:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] back pain Message-ID: Use a rolled up towel at the small of your back. Well, everyone knows that. Here's a better way: Get a yoga mat (you probably have one lightly used?), about 1/4" thick. Roll it up as tightly as you can and tape it shut with packaging tape. Just the right amount of support and very comfortable compared to a towel. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 17:49:32 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 11:49:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Many thanks to those who posted their favorite pop songs. I encourage others to contribute. I will NOT be posting any opinions of mine regarding the selections. It is possible that I limited myself: I divide things into classical and popular, and others may enjoy genres that they regard as not of those two. If so, let me know your genres that were not included. bill w On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 9:17 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's > like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever > genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! > bill w > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 18:37:56 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 10:37:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <76725B5F-9D02-43D4-ADA4-90D72EFBE026@gmail.com> > On Jan 16, 2022, at 9:51 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > ? > Many thanks to those who posted their favorite pop songs. I encourage others to contribute. I will NOT be posting any opinions of mine regarding the selections. It is possible that I limited myself: I divide things into classical and popular, and others may enjoy genres that they regard as not of those two. If so, let me know your genres that were not included. bill w > > On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 9:17 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! bill w Well, the big problem is what people mean by ?pop.? When I talk about stuff like this to my friends, generally I think we (my friends and I) agree something like the songs of Billie Eilish or Patrick Wolf are pop, but not, say, Alien Ant Farm (they?re nu metal) or Future (he?s a rap artist often classified as making trap or mumble rap ? two different if overlapping genres of hip hop). So, pop means something different than simply popular when applied to music. (Think of pop art. Perhaps the most popular artist is Van Gogh, but I wouldn?t categorize him as pop art. Andy Warhol and so is Robert Rauschenberg pop art, and they?re both popular, but so Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, and Da Vinci. But none of the latter four are said to have made pop art. So be careful of the label. A friend of mine even said he classifies his music more by decade than genre because there are too many overlaps between the genres and sub genres. So he thinks it?s easier to go by decade, despite that being arbitrary in many respects. It?s more a pragmatic decision: how can I find stuff easily. (Another thing is you?re now using ?pop songs.? Well, do you mean just song music? In which case, almost all pop music is song music, so you?re on safe ground. But is almost all popular music ? differentiating pop and popular and still not including, say, classical and jazz music that?s popular ? song music? Yeah, but there?s a lot of popular dance music that?s not. Astronomia by Tony Ig is extremely popular but it?s not song music (at least the Vicerone remix isn?t). Same applies to Sandstorm by Darude (trance?), which has brought in a lot of money (around a billion USD since it came out in 2000).) When I responded with my list, most of my selections were dream pop or synthpop. A few were rock/pop, which is distinguished if fuzzy from just rock. Of course, you left out jazz and all its subgenres, and there?s the question of how clearly one draws the line between pop music and stuff like hip hop, dance music, electronica, folk, alternative, punk, etc. Heck, I left these out, for the most part, because when I think pop, I think Katy Perry and not The Killers. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lostmyelectron at protonmail.com Sun Jan 16 18:57:25 2022 From: lostmyelectron at protonmail.com (Gabe Waggoner) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 18:57:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Course advice needed Message-ID: Hi, everyone, I have a chance to pursue a master?s program in clinical microbiology here in DC. I?d appreciate some advice. I?ve already met all the prerequisites for the program, which doesn?t require organic chemistry. One of my microbiology professors told me not to take it if I don?t have to have it. He took it a few years ago as an undergraduate and says he remembers almost none of it as far as the more complex reactions and mechanisms go. He instead recommended reading a book he used that will describe all the chemistry I need to know (I don?t recall the title?some tome on organic chemistry from an ecology standpoint). My shelves are filled with organic chemistry books from my years of editing science textbooks, including those for general and organic chemistry (and ancillary elements such as solution manuals and instructor resource guides and lab exercises). I have a good command of the nomenclature and have never had a problem understanding organic chemistry as it manifests in microbiology. Yet I feel guilty at the idea of entering this program without having taken organic chemistry, as though I?m cheating. What to do? I have a few options: I could take the first semester of organic chemistry this spring and the second semester over the summer, before the program begins in the fall. Or I could audit the courses instead of taking them for credit. Or I could just do self-study until the fall. Any thoughts? Gabe ? Gabe Waggoner, MS, ELS Science Writer?Editor 7318 Edmonston Rd. College Park, MD 20740-3018 www.nasw.org/users/rgwaggoner/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 21:10:01 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 15:10:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Course advice needed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I would take my question to one of the professors who are going to teach the course you think you want to take, and ask him or her to give you a copy of a final exam that was used in the past. That would tell you what you want to know. bill w On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 12:59 PM Gabe Waggoner via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hi, everyone, > > I have a chance to pursue a master?s program in clinical microbiology here > in DC. I?d appreciate some advice. > > I?ve already met all the prerequisites for the program, which doesn?t > require organic chemistry. One of my microbiology professors told me not to > take it if I don?t have to have it. He took it a few years ago as an > undergraduate and says he remembers almost none of it as far as the more > complex reactions and mechanisms go. He instead recommended reading a book > he used that will describe all the chemistry I need to know (I don?t recall > the title?some tome on organic chemistry from an ecology standpoint). > > My shelves are filled with organic chemistry books from my years of editing science > textbooks, including those for general and organic chemistry (and ancillary > elements such as solution manuals and instructor resource guides and lab > exercises). I have a good command of the nomenclature and have never had a > problem understanding organic chemistry as it manifests in microbiology. Yet > I feel guilty at the idea of entering this program without having taken > organic chemistry, as though I?m cheating. > > What to do? I have a few options: I could take the first semester of > organic chemistry this spring and the second semester over the summer, > before the program begins in the fall. Or I could audit the courses instead > of taking them for credit. Or I could just do self-study until the fall. > Any thoughts? > > Gabe > > ? > Gabe Waggoner, MS, ELS > Science Writer?Editor > 7318 Edmonston Rd. > College Park, MD 20740-3018 > www.nasw.org/users/rgwaggoner/ > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From col.hales at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 23:20:37 2022 From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 10:20:37 +1100 Subject: [ExI] AI software is now writing the internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I recently acted as handling editor for a submission for a well known journal. The article was so bad it should not have gotten past a desk reject. I was forced to entertain the idea that the article was a hand edited construct GPT3 , coached into existence by toxified incentives of unknown kind. I still do not know what actually happened in the case of this article. Was it human? What i do know is that editing and reviewing scientific papers has a whole new aspect to it. On Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 10:46 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Sample description - > > Finally, an AI that does your writing for you. > Say goodbye to writer?s block. With this AI writing assistant, you can > generate high-quality, human-level blog posts, landing pages, emails, > product descriptions, digital ads and more in seconds. > ---------------------- > > The software is impressive but still needs human editing. > Fact-checking is also required. Since it uses the web to create, the > more widely covered the topic, the more sources it has to extract > information from. However, having more information available also > means that more misinformation is also available, making it harder to > tell facts from fiction. > Pricing can be expensive. > > It will soon be difficult to tell whether you are talking to or > reading posts from a human or AI software. > > BillK > > Sample companies: > > Jarvis AI > > > Grammarly Business > > > Peppertype.ai > > > Writer > > > ContentBot > > > Writesonic > > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 16 23:22:04 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 17:22:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <76725B5F-9D02-43D4-ADA4-90D72EFBE026@gmail.com> References: <76725B5F-9D02-43D4-ADA4-90D72EFBE026@gmail.com> Message-ID: I knew that there were a lot of genres. To my extremely limited musical taste, there's classical and there's 'other', which I called pop. Katy Perry - one of the funniest things I ever saw: one costume featured large lollipops affixed to her breasts. I wonder if part of her act is a sendup. A satire. Jazz - I heard Dave Brubeck Quartet in concert in Hyannis Port in 1962. It turned out that Brubeck's is the only jazz I like (he was classically trained by Milhaud and wrote classical music). I do like some pre-1950 jazz. I did say no review, but I was lying. In Dan's post he mentioned Sandstorm, so I heard it on Youtube. Extremely annoying. Also Astronomia - not as annoying but plenty annoying. Is there a genre where nearly total repetitiveness is not present? The songs varied only in the voice part - the background was totally repetitive. I wonder at the musicians who play it. I would be absolutely bored out of my mind, if anything was left of it after doing it for a few years. More later. bill w On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 12:40 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 16, 2022, at 9:51 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ? > Many thanks to those who posted their favorite pop songs. I encourage > others to contribute. I will NOT be posting any opinions of mine regarding > the selections. It is possible that I limited myself: I divide things > into classical and popular, and others may enjoy genres that they regard as > not of those two. If so, let me know your genres that were not included. > bill w > > On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 9:17 AM William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > >> I have not listened to pop music for a long time and wonder what it's >> like. So I am asking all of you to send me your favorite songs of whatever >> genre so I can hear what they are like. Post 90s songs please. Thanks! >> bill w >> > > > Well, the big problem is what people mean by ?pop.? When I talk about > stuff like this to my friends, generally I think we (my friends and I) > agree something like the songs of Billie Eilish or Patrick Wolf are pop, > but not, say, Alien Ant Farm (they?re nu metal) or Future (he?s a rap > artist often classified as making trap or mumble rap ? two different if > overlapping genres of hip hop). So, pop means something different than > simply popular when applied to music. (Think of pop art. Perhaps the most > popular artist is Van Gogh, but I wouldn?t categorize him as pop art. Andy > Warhol and so is Robert Rauschenberg pop art, and they?re both popular, but > so Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, and Da Vinci. But none of the latter four are > said to have made pop art. So be careful of the label. > > A friend of mine even said he classifies his music more by decade than > genre because there are too many overlaps between the genres and sub > genres. So he thinks it?s easier to go by decade, despite that being > arbitrary in many respects. It?s more a pragmatic decision: how can I find > stuff easily. > > (Another thing is you?re now using ?pop songs.? Well, do you mean just > song music? In which case, almost all pop music is song music, so you?re on > safe ground. But is almost all popular music ? differentiating pop and > popular and still not including, say, classical and jazz music that?s > popular ? song music? Yeah, but there?s a lot of popular dance music that?s > not. Astronomia by Tony Ig is extremely popular but it?s not song music (at > least the Vicerone remix isn?t). Same applies to Sandstorm by Darude > (trance?), which has brought in a lot of money (around a billion USD since > it came out in 2000).) > > When I responded with my list, most of my selections were dream pop or > synthpop. A few were rock/pop, which is distinguished if fuzzy from just > rock. Of course, you left out jazz and all its subgenres, and there?s the > question of how clearly one draws the line between pop music and stuff like > hip hop, dance music, electronica, folk, alternative, punk, etc. Heck, I > left these out, for the most part, because when I think pop, I think Katy > Perry and not The Killers. > > Regards, > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 01:10:37 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 19:10:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] AI software is now writing the internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Scientific papers are ways for profs to get promotion and tenure, as we all know. What percentage of those are worthless? For some journals, probably 100% (those where you have to pay to get it published). For the very top journals probably 25%. This constitutes an enormous waste of talent. Some, myself for instance, are not so hot at research and much better at teaching. I was able to avoid most research and others should be able to choose this path. This would lighten the worthless load quite a bit. bill w On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 5:23 PM Colin Hales via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I recently acted as handling editor for a submission for a well known > journal. The article was so bad it should not have gotten past a desk > reject. > > I was forced to entertain the idea that the article was a hand edited > construct GPT3 , coached into existence by toxified incentives of unknown > kind. > > I still do not know what actually happened in the case of this article. > Was it human? What i do know is that editing and reviewing scientific > papers has a whole new aspect to it. > > On Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 10:46 PM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Sample description - >> >> Finally, an AI that does your writing for you. >> Say goodbye to writer?s block. With this AI writing assistant, you can >> generate high-quality, human-level blog posts, landing pages, emails, >> product descriptions, digital ads and more in seconds. >> ---------------------- >> >> The software is impressive but still needs human editing. >> Fact-checking is also required. Since it uses the web to create, the >> more widely covered the topic, the more sources it has to extract >> information from. However, having more information available also >> means that more misinformation is also available, making it harder to >> tell facts from fiction. >> Pricing can be expensive. >> >> It will soon be difficult to tell whether you are talking to or >> reading posts from a human or AI software. >> >> BillK >> >> Sample companies: >> >> Jarvis AI >> >> >> Grammarly Business >> >> >> Peppertype.ai >> >> >> Writer >> >> >> ContentBot >> >> >> Writesonic >> >> >> ----------------------------------------------------------- >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Mon Jan 17 02:51:22 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 18:51:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <95E9F115-0194-43D6-98EF-8A26E0BDF6BA@gmail.com> On Jan 16, 2022, at 3:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > I knew that there were a lot of genres. To my extremely limited musical taste, there's classical and there's 'other', which I called pop. That?s fine if idiosyncratic. I mean it puts you at odds with ordinary usage, and it does lead to confusion. I would?ve made very different choices if I knew you simply meant ?non-classical.? For instance, I probably would?ve listed Polyphia and other recent ?progressive? or instrumental rock bands. (Non-classical is also a problematic term. Are Johann Strauss II waltzes classical or popular? I would classify them in the latter category, but perhaps they fit into both. This is kind of like high/low distinction in art generally, where there are plenty of artists that span the distinction, such as Shakespeare. SF (and just any ?genre? fiction) is almost almost classified as low art by critics and theorists and ignored. This has changed a little recently, though I still run into people under my age who presume SF, horror, mystery, etc. are not or can?t be serious art. And often the exceptions are reclassified as not genre writers. So, if someone like Cormack McCarthy writes a Western (which is like almost all of his work), they?re not seen as Westerns, but as literary fiction. In SF, Kurt Vonnegut gets welcomed by the literary establishment, but I bet it?ll be a few decades before the current crop of sophisticated SF writers are. Reminds me of how the Nobel was looked down upon because epic poetry was the obvious form of high art in narrative literature.) > Katy Perry - one of the funniest things I ever saw: one costume featured large lollipops affixed to her breasts. > I wonder if part of her act is a sendup. A satire. > > Jazz - I heard Dave Brubeck Quartet in concert in Hyannis Port in 1962. It turned out that Brubeck's is the only jazz I like (he was classically trained by Milhaud and wrote classical music). I do like some pre-1950 jazz. Many jazz artists are classically trained, even after Brubeck. Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Jan Garbarek, Wynton Marsalis, and Herbie Hancock all started with classical training. I wouldn?t make classical training the disideratum of playing great jazz, but, if that?s what you?re looking for, there?s them. ;) > I did say no review, but I was lying. In Dan's post he mentioned Sandstorm, so I heard it on Youtube. Extremely annoying. Also Astronomia - not as annoying but plenty annoying. Dance music, in general, tends to be like that. The Strauss waltzes come to mind and a lot of classical ballet music. By the way, I mentioned those two pieces to make a point. I wasn?t offering them as my favorites. Similarly for Katy Perry. I believe most people would agree Perry is pop and Darude and Tony Ivy are not pop ? even though all three are ?popular.? > Is there a genre where nearly total repetitiveness is not present? The songs varied only in the voice part - the background was totally repetitive. I wonder at the musicians who play it. I would be absolutely bored out of my mind, if anything was left of it after doing it for a few years. More later. bill w Kind of strange that your taste in poetry ? well, based on that poem you shared here a few days ago ? seems to be for sing songy (in other words, ?nearly total repetitiveness? in the meter) work. ;) Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nuala.t at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 04:26:52 2022 From: nuala.t at gmail.com (Nuala Thomson) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 14:26:52 +1000 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <95E9F115-0194-43D6-98EF-8A26E0BDF6BA@gmail.com> References: <95E9F115-0194-43D6-98EF-8A26E0BDF6BA@gmail.com> Message-ID: Well if it's lack of repetition you're after, let me introduce to djent, or math metal: Artist: Meshuggah Yes they have repetitive riffs but try and count the beats ;) I'm sure if you can get past the brutality you'll enjoy it. https://youtu.be/a1zFJKPOnXg Artist: Tesseract Fair bit of jazz influence and vocals may or may not be more to your liking. https://youtu.be/get0cXOsSXg Artist: Animals as Leaders Purely instrumental. This is the song that got them as famous as they will probably ever get. There are some repetitive sections but they lead somewhere. https://youtu.be/q0ZrF7taMHA Artist: The Ocean I'm going to send 2 because my favourite song is highly repetitive and that wasn't my point here. I think it just needs sharing. https://youtu.be/EaeFVhENrb8 Title of the album: Precambrian The titles of the songs go by layers of the ocean. This is the album: https://youtu.be/5TISfxNI_yM In my opinion it's a master piece. The first few songs are aggressive, tumultuous, violent, as is the surface of the ocean. The deeper you go the calmer it gets. If you wish I also recommend Russian Circles. They're also instrumental, less math more beauty. Highly repetitive but it always builds to something. And Metallica's Call of Cthulu is beautiful. But I'm biased towards ANYTHING Lovecraftian. As for sub genres, I get a huge laugh that Christian Deathcore exists. On Mon., Jan. 17, 2022, 12:53 Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat, < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 16, 2022, at 3:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I knew that there were a lot of genres. To my extremely limited musical > taste, there's classical and there's 'other', which I called pop. > > > That?s fine if idiosyncratic. I mean it puts you at odds with ordinary > usage, and it does lead to confusion. I would?ve made very different > choices if I knew you simply meant ?non-classical.? For instance, I > probably would?ve listed Polyphia and other recent ?progressive? or > instrumental rock bands. > > (Non-classical is also a problematic term. Are Johann Strauss II waltzes > classical or popular? I would classify them in the latter category, but > perhaps they fit into both. This is kind of like high/low distinction in > art generally, where there are plenty of artists that span the distinction, > such as Shakespeare. SF (and just any ?genre? fiction) is almost almost > classified as low art by critics and theorists and ignored. This has > changed a little recently, though I still run into people under my age who > presume SF, horror, mystery, etc. are not or can?t be serious art. And > often the exceptions are reclassified as not genre writers. So, if someone > like Cormack McCarthy writes a Western (which is like almost all of his > work), they?re not seen as Westerns, but as literary fiction. In SF, Kurt > Vonnegut gets welcomed by the literary establishment, but I bet it?ll be a > few decades before the current crop of sophisticated SF writers are. > Reminds me of how the Nobel was looked down upon because epic poetry was > the obvious form of high art in narrative literature.) > > Katy Perry - one of the funniest things I ever saw: one costume featured > large lollipops affixed to her breasts. > I wonder if part of her act is a sendup. A satire. > > Jazz - I heard Dave Brubeck Quartet in concert in Hyannis Port in 1962. > It turned out that Brubeck's is the only jazz I like (he was > classically trained by Milhaud and wrote classical music). I do like some > pre-1950 jazz. > > > Many jazz artists are classically trained, even after Brubeck. Keith > Jarrett, Chick Corea, Jan Garbarek, Wynton Marsalis, and Herbie Hancock all > started with classical training. I wouldn?t make classical training the > disideratum of playing great jazz, but, if that?s what you?re looking for, > there?s them. ;) > > I did say no review, but I was lying. In Dan's post he mentioned > Sandstorm, so I heard it on Youtube. Extremely annoying. Also Astronomia > - not as annoying but plenty annoying. > > > Dance music, in general, tends to be like that. The Strauss waltzes come > to mind and a lot of classical ballet music. > > By the way, I mentioned those two pieces to make a point. I wasn?t > offering them as my favorites. Similarly for Katy Perry. I believe most > people would agree Perry is pop and Darude and Tony Ivy are not pop ? even > though all three are ?popular.? > > Is there a genre where nearly total repetitiveness is not present? The > songs varied only in the voice part - the background was totally > repetitive. I wonder at the musicians who play it. I would be absolutely > bored out of my mind, if anything was left of it after doing it for a few > years. More later. bill w > > > Kind of strange that your taste in poetry ? well, based on that poem you > shared here a few days ago ? seems to be for sing songy (in other words, > ?nearly total repetitiveness? in the meter) work. ;) > > Regards, > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 06:47:56 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2022 22:47:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Course advice needed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 10:59 AM Gabe Waggoner via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I?ve already met all the prerequisites for the program, which doesn?t > require organic chemistry. > These are the facts as laid out by them. Everything else you're judging from is your own intuition and guesswork, which can interfere with the facts. The facts say, plainly, that you don't need it. Therefore, you don't need it. Yet I feel guilty at the idea of entering this program without having taken > organic chemistry, as though I?m cheating. > That's imposter syndrome, particularly the part where you feel like you're cheating. It can be nasty and nerve-wracking, and do a number on your self-confidence, but it doesn't change other peoples' facts. That said, I echo the suggestion to, if possible, get a copy of the final exam from a prior year of the course you are worried about. If you can pass it, which it sounds like you can, then that's proof that you've learned the material outside the classroom and do not need to waste your university's time taking the course itself. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 08:18:36 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 00:18:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] AI software is now writing the internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 16, 2022, at 5:12 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > Scientific papers are ways for profs to get promotion and tenure, as we all know. What percentage of those are worthless? For some journals, probably 100% (those where you have to pay to get it published). For the very top journals probably 25%. This constitutes an enormous waste of talent. Some, myself for instance, are not so hot at research and much better at teaching. I was able to avoid most research and others should be able to choose this path. This would lighten the worthless load quite a bit. bill w Pay to publish journals are likely garbage, but the problem with scientific papers (and with research in general) is you really can?t judge its worth until afterwards, sometimes long afterwards. The price of progress in science and scholarship seems to paid by going down blind alleys and courting failure. That?s the nature of the beast. If researchers had perfect or near perfect foresight they could avoid much of this waste, but lacking such the effort to avoid waste could result in slower progress. This isn?t to say no alterations of current practices (including tenure systems) should be considered, but I?d be careful to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lostmyelectron at protonmail.com Mon Jan 17 15:23:40 2022 From: lostmyelectron at protonmail.com (Gabe Waggoner) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 15:23:40 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Course advice needed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <31569087-3FE4-4C79-BD7F-5A7FB711EFFF@protonmail.com> > On Jan 17, 2022, at 1:47 AM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 10:59 AM Gabe Waggoner via extropy-chat wrote: > >> I?ve already met all the prerequisites for the program, which doesn?t require organic chemistry. > > These are the facts as laid out by them. Everything else you're judging from is your own intuition and guesswork, which can interfere with the facts. > > The facts say, plainly, that you don't need it. Therefore, you don't need it. > >> Yet I feel guilty at the idea of entering this program without having taken organic chemistry, as though I?m cheating. > > That's imposter syndrome, particularly the part where you feel like you're cheating. It can be nasty and nerve-wracking, and do a number on your self-confidence, but it doesn't change other peoples' facts. > > That said, I echo the suggestion to, if possible, get a copy of the final exam from a prior year of the course you are worried about. If you can pass it, which it sounds like you can, then that's proof that you've learned the material outside the classroom and do not need to waste your university's time taking the course itself. Imposter syndrome and I are longtime friends. This degree program isn?t focused on research but instead on application and lab procedures. So I should stop comparing myself to people who are striving to become PhD microbiologists, for whom organic chemistry would be essential. Thank you both for your insights. I agree that getting a copy of an old exam would be helpful, but that?s not possible at my school. All exams, finals and otherwise, are kept by professors to prevent posting on the internet. But many organic chemistry exams are readily available online from other schools, so I may just do self-study and test myself over the coming months. Someone else told me that what?s important is being able to handle the coursework in the master?s program, not getting credit on my transcript for taking an unnecessary prerequisite. Best wishes, Gabe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 17:20:31 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 11:20:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: <95E9F115-0194-43D6-98EF-8A26E0BDF6BA@gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks Nuela Brutality doesn't bother me. One can't get any more brutal than Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. bill w On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 10:29 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Well if it's lack of repetition you're after, let me introduce to djent, > or math metal: > Artist: Meshuggah > Yes they have repetitive riffs but try and count the beats ;) I'm sure if > you can get past the brutality you'll enjoy it. > https://youtu.be/a1zFJKPOnXg > > Artist: Tesseract > Fair bit of jazz influence and vocals may or may not be more to your > liking. > https://youtu.be/get0cXOsSXg > > Artist: Animals as Leaders > Purely instrumental. This is the song that got them as famous as they will > probably ever get. There are some repetitive sections but they lead > somewhere. > https://youtu.be/q0ZrF7taMHA > > Artist: The Ocean > I'm going to send 2 because my favourite song is highly repetitive and > that wasn't my point here. I think it just needs sharing. > https://youtu.be/EaeFVhENrb8 > Title of the album: Precambrian > The titles of the songs go by layers of the ocean. > This is the album: https://youtu.be/5TISfxNI_yM > In my opinion it's a master piece. The first few songs are aggressive, > tumultuous, violent, as is the surface of the ocean. The deeper you go the > calmer it gets. > > If you wish I also recommend Russian Circles. They're also instrumental, > less math more beauty. Highly repetitive but it always builds to something. > And Metallica's Call of Cthulu is beautiful. But I'm biased towards > ANYTHING Lovecraftian. > As for sub genres, I get a huge laugh that Christian Deathcore exists. > > On Mon., Jan. 17, 2022, 12:53 Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat, < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Jan 16, 2022, at 3:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> I knew that there were a lot of genres. To my extremely limited musical >> taste, there's classical and there's 'other', which I called pop. >> >> >> That?s fine if idiosyncratic. I mean it puts you at odds with ordinary >> usage, and it does lead to confusion. I would?ve made very different >> choices if I knew you simply meant ?non-classical.? For instance, I >> probably would?ve listed Polyphia and other recent ?progressive? or >> instrumental rock bands. >> >> (Non-classical is also a problematic term. Are Johann Strauss II waltzes >> classical or popular? I would classify them in the latter category, but >> perhaps they fit into both. This is kind of like high/low distinction in >> art generally, where there are plenty of artists that span the distinction, >> such as Shakespeare. SF (and just any ?genre? fiction) is almost almost >> classified as low art by critics and theorists and ignored. This has >> changed a little recently, though I still run into people under my age who >> presume SF, horror, mystery, etc. are not or can?t be serious art. And >> often the exceptions are reclassified as not genre writers. So, if someone >> like Cormack McCarthy writes a Western (which is like almost all of his >> work), they?re not seen as Westerns, but as literary fiction. In SF, Kurt >> Vonnegut gets welcomed by the literary establishment, but I bet it?ll be a >> few decades before the current crop of sophisticated SF writers are. >> Reminds me of how the Nobel was looked down upon because epic poetry was >> the obvious form of high art in narrative literature.) >> >> Katy Perry - one of the funniest things I ever saw: one costume featured >> large lollipops affixed to her breasts. >> I wonder if part of her act is a sendup. A satire. >> >> Jazz - I heard Dave Brubeck Quartet in concert in Hyannis Port in 1962. >> It turned out that Brubeck's is the only jazz I like (he was >> classically trained by Milhaud and wrote classical music). I do like some >> pre-1950 jazz. >> >> >> Many jazz artists are classically trained, even after Brubeck. Keith >> Jarrett, Chick Corea, Jan Garbarek, Wynton Marsalis, and Herbie Hancock all >> started with classical training. I wouldn?t make classical training the >> disideratum of playing great jazz, but, if that?s what you?re looking for, >> there?s them. ;) >> >> I did say no review, but I was lying. In Dan's post he mentioned >> Sandstorm, so I heard it on Youtube. Extremely annoying. Also Astronomia >> - not as annoying but plenty annoying. >> >> >> Dance music, in general, tends to be like that. The Strauss waltzes come >> to mind and a lot of classical ballet music. >> >> By the way, I mentioned those two pieces to make a point. I wasn?t >> offering them as my favorites. Similarly for Katy Perry. I believe most >> people would agree Perry is pop and Darude and Tony Ivy are not pop ? even >> though all three are ?popular.? >> >> Is there a genre where nearly total repetitiveness is not present? The >> songs varied only in the voice part - the background was totally >> repetitive. I wonder at the musicians who play it. I would be absolutely >> bored out of my mind, if anything was left of it after doing it for a few >> years. More later. bill w >> >> >> Kind of strange that your taste in poetry ? well, based on that poem you >> shared here a few days ago ? seems to be for sing songy (in other words, >> ?nearly total repetitiveness? in the meter) work. ;) >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 17:40:04 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 11:40:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: <95E9F115-0194-43D6-98EF-8A26E0BDF6BA@gmail.com> Message-ID: Nuala, apparently you like frantic, chaotic music all played in a minor key. Nothing wrong with that, but what do you listen to to get down from that music? I would never sit and listen to your music, but probably would like it a lot if I were high and on a dance floor! bill On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 10:29 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Well if it's lack of repetition you're after, let me introduce to djent, > or math metal: > Artist: Meshuggah > Yes they have repetitive riffs but try and count the beats ;) I'm sure if > you can get past the brutality you'll enjoy it. > https://youtu.be/a1zFJKPOnXg > > Artist: Tesseract > Fair bit of jazz influence and vocals may or may not be more to your > liking. > https://youtu.be/get0cXOsSXg > > Artist: Animals as Leaders > Purely instrumental. This is the song that got them as famous as they will > probably ever get. There are some repetitive sections but they lead > somewhere. > https://youtu.be/q0ZrF7taMHA > > Artist: The Ocean > I'm going to send 2 because my favourite song is highly repetitive and > that wasn't my point here. I think it just needs sharing. > https://youtu.be/EaeFVhENrb8 > Title of the album: Precambrian > The titles of the songs go by layers of the ocean. > This is the album: https://youtu.be/5TISfxNI_yM > In my opinion it's a master piece. The first few songs are aggressive, > tumultuous, violent, as is the surface of the ocean. The deeper you go the > calmer it gets. > > If you wish I also recommend Russian Circles. They're also instrumental, > less math more beauty. Highly repetitive but it always builds to something. > And Metallica's Call of Cthulu is beautiful. But I'm biased towards > ANYTHING Lovecraftian. > As for sub genres, I get a huge laugh that Christian Deathcore exists. > > On Mon., Jan. 17, 2022, 12:53 Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat, < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Jan 16, 2022, at 3:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >> I knew that there were a lot of genres. To my extremely limited musical >> taste, there's classical and there's 'other', which I called pop. >> >> >> That?s fine if idiosyncratic. I mean it puts you at odds with ordinary >> usage, and it does lead to confusion. I would?ve made very different >> choices if I knew you simply meant ?non-classical.? For instance, I >> probably would?ve listed Polyphia and other recent ?progressive? or >> instrumental rock bands. >> >> (Non-classical is also a problematic term. Are Johann Strauss II waltzes >> classical or popular? I would classify them in the latter category, but >> perhaps they fit into both. This is kind of like high/low distinction in >> art generally, where there are plenty of artists that span the distinction, >> such as Shakespeare. SF (and just any ?genre? fiction) is almost almost >> classified as low art by critics and theorists and ignored. This has >> changed a little recently, though I still run into people under my age who >> presume SF, horror, mystery, etc. are not or can?t be serious art. And >> often the exceptions are reclassified as not genre writers. So, if someone >> like Cormack McCarthy writes a Western (which is like almost all of his >> work), they?re not seen as Westerns, but as literary fiction. In SF, Kurt >> Vonnegut gets welcomed by the literary establishment, but I bet it?ll be a >> few decades before the current crop of sophisticated SF writers are. >> Reminds me of how the Nobel was looked down upon because epic poetry was >> the obvious form of high art in narrative literature.) >> >> Katy Perry - one of the funniest things I ever saw: one costume featured >> large lollipops affixed to her breasts. >> I wonder if part of her act is a sendup. A satire. >> >> Jazz - I heard Dave Brubeck Quartet in concert in Hyannis Port in 1962. >> It turned out that Brubeck's is the only jazz I like (he was >> classically trained by Milhaud and wrote classical music). I do like some >> pre-1950 jazz. >> >> >> Many jazz artists are classically trained, even after Brubeck. Keith >> Jarrett, Chick Corea, Jan Garbarek, Wynton Marsalis, and Herbie Hancock all >> started with classical training. I wouldn?t make classical training the >> disideratum of playing great jazz, but, if that?s what you?re looking for, >> there?s them. ;) >> >> I did say no review, but I was lying. In Dan's post he mentioned >> Sandstorm, so I heard it on Youtube. Extremely annoying. Also Astronomia >> - not as annoying but plenty annoying. >> >> >> Dance music, in general, tends to be like that. The Strauss waltzes come >> to mind and a lot of classical ballet music. >> >> By the way, I mentioned those two pieces to make a point. I wasn?t >> offering them as my favorites. Similarly for Katy Perry. I believe most >> people would agree Perry is pop and Darude and Tony Ivy are not pop ? even >> though all three are ?popular.? >> >> Is there a genre where nearly total repetitiveness is not present? The >> songs varied only in the voice part - the background was totally >> repetitive. I wonder at the musicians who play it. I would be absolutely >> bored out of my mind, if anything was left of it after doing it for a few >> years. More later. bill w >> >> >> Kind of strange that your taste in poetry ? well, based on that poem you >> shared here a few days ago ? seems to be for sing songy (in other words, >> ?nearly total repetitiveness? in the meter) work. ;) >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 17:43:46 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 11:43:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <95E9F115-0194-43D6-98EF-8A26E0BDF6BA@gmail.com> References: <95E9F115-0194-43D6-98EF-8A26E0BDF6BA@gmail.com> Message-ID: I liked the poem because of the content. In fantasy and scifi there are several writers who can write as well as anyone - Card and Bujold for two. Mozart may have set a record: one of his night pieces ran to 14 minutes, but because of repeats had only 6 minutes of original music. I knew when I asked the question that I did not know how to ask the question and some of you have helped me clarify it. I will listen to nearly every piece y'all have suggested And want more. New request: I heard a group who played percussion instruments only years ago (no vocals aside from the occasional yelling; cannot remember their name). If any of you are percussion lovers, please let me know the name of a group you like. bill w On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 8:53 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 16, 2022, at 3:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I knew that there were a lot of genres. To my extremely limited musical > taste, there's classical and there's 'other', which I called pop. > > > That?s fine if idiosyncratic. I mean it puts you at odds with ordinary > usage, and it does lead to confusion. I would?ve made very different > choices if I knew you simply meant ?non-classical.? For instance, I > probably would?ve listed Polyphia and other recent ?progressive? or > instrumental rock bands. > > (Non-classical is also a problematic term. Are Johann Strauss II waltzes > classical or popular? I would classify them in the latter category, but > perhaps they fit into both. This is kind of like high/low distinction in > art generally, where there are plenty of artists that span the distinction, > such as Shakespeare. SF (and just any ?genre? fiction) is almost almost > classified as low art by critics and theorists and ignored. This has > changed a little recently, though I still run into people under my age who > presume SF, horror, mystery, etc. are not or can?t be serious art. And > often the exceptions are reclassified as not genre writers. So, if someone > like Cormack McCarthy writes a Western (which is like almost all of his > work), they?re not seen as Westerns, but as literary fiction. In SF, Kurt > Vonnegut gets welcomed by the literary establishment, but I bet it?ll be a > few decades before the current crop of sophisticated SF writers are. > Reminds me of how the Nobel was looked down upon because epic poetry was > the obvious form of high art in narrative literature.) > > Katy Perry - one of the funniest things I ever saw: one costume featured > large lollipops affixed to her breasts. > I wonder if part of her act is a sendup. A satire. > > Jazz - I heard Dave Brubeck Quartet in concert in Hyannis Port in 1962. > It turned out that Brubeck's is the only jazz I like (he was > classically trained by Milhaud and wrote classical music). I do like some > pre-1950 jazz. > > > Many jazz artists are classically trained, even after Brubeck. Keith > Jarrett, Chick Corea, Jan Garbarek, Wynton Marsalis, and Herbie Hancock all > started with classical training. I wouldn?t make classical training the > disideratum of playing great jazz, but, if that?s what you?re looking for, > there?s them. ;) > > I did say no review, but I was lying. In Dan's post he mentioned > Sandstorm, so I heard it on Youtube. Extremely annoying. Also Astronomia > - not as annoying but plenty annoying. > > > Dance music, in general, tends to be like that. The Strauss waltzes come > to mind and a lot of classical ballet music. > > By the way, I mentioned those two pieces to make a point. I wasn?t > offering them as my favorites. Similarly for Katy Perry. I believe most > people would agree Perry is pop and Darude and Tony Ivy are not pop ? even > though all three are ?popular.? > > Is there a genre where nearly total repetitiveness is not present? The > songs varied only in the voice part - the background was totally > repetitive. I wonder at the musicians who play it. I would be absolutely > bored out of my mind, if anything was left of it after doing it for a few > years. More later. bill w > > > Kind of strange that your taste in poetry ? well, based on that poem you > shared here a few days ago ? seems to be for sing songy (in other words, > ?nearly total repetitiveness? in the meter) work. ;) > > Regards, > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 21:04:45 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 13:04:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 17, 2022, at 9:48 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote:? > I liked the poem because of the content. This is like saying you liked not because of the poetry. Also, that poem was repetitive regarding meaning too. Most stanza repeated the same meaning throughout. This and all too regular meter made it hard to get through, especially given its length. (Sure, I?ve read longer poems, but this one tested the limits of how long one could continue a regular beat and repeat the same meaning.) > In fantasy and scifi there are several writers who can write as well as anyone - Card and Bujold for two. I didn?t want to go into specific examples. My point was you seem to be doing the same thing with regard to non-classical music as certain literary critics do with regard to science fiction (and other genre fiction). Clipping the rest. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 22:48:23 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 16:48:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I do not hold my nose when reading any genre and I do not sneer at music that is not classical. If I liked it, I would like it and apologize to no one and recommend it to others. I do not sneer at people who love things I don't like or even hate. The cold, hard fact is that I just don't like most things, whether it's music or not. Picky from birth, Mama said. No criticism of the poem, from you or anyone, is going to convince me not to like it. You don't. Fine. Enough said. bill w On Mon, Jan 17, 2022 at 3:06 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Jan 17, 2022, at 9:48 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:? > > I liked the poem because of the content. > > > This is like saying you liked not because of the poetry. Also, that poem > was repetitive regarding meaning too. Most stanza repeated the same meaning > throughout. This and all too regular meter made it hard to get through, > especially given its length. (Sure, I?ve read longer poems, but this one > tested the limits of how long one could continue a regular beat and repeat > the same meaning.) > > In fantasy and scifi there are several writers who can write as well as > anyone - Card and Bujold for two. > > > I didn?t want to go into specific examples. My point was you seem to be > doing the same thing with regard to non-classical music as certain literary > critics do with regard to science fiction (and other genre fiction). > > Clipping the rest. > > Regards, > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 17 23:41:38 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 15:41:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <2AFFF6B8-99CB-405C-864F-12775995AD9D@gmail.com> References: <003401d80a45$e460a5f0$ad21f1d0$@rainier66.com> <2AFFF6B8-99CB-405C-864F-12775995AD9D@gmail.com> Message-ID: <025f01d80bfb$c6481820$52d84860$@rainier66.com> ?>>Thanks SR but I am not really a religious type. spike _______________________________________________ ?.> On Behalf Of SR Ballard via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] music survey >?Spike, lol. Most Satanists are atheists anyway. >?SR Ballard SR, this comes as no surprise. The god churches are similar: not everyone in that congregation is religious. A good fraction of them are only there for the orgies. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 00:02:14 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 16:02:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 17, 2022, at 2:50 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > I do not hold my nose when reading any genre and I do not sneer at music that is not classical. If I liked it, I would like it and apologize to no one and recommend it to others. I do not sneer at people who love things I don't like or even hate. The cold, hard fact is that I just don't like most things, whether it's music or not. Picky from birth, Mama said. > > No criticism of the poem, from you or anyone, is going to convince me not to like it. You don't. Fine. Enough said. bill w On the Becky Helmsley poem, here?s a little recap. Me: It?s a bit too sing songy for my tastes. Bill W: Shakespeare thought iambic pentameter great. Me too. Me: Note that ?sing songy? doesn?t mean ?iambic pentameter.? Later on? Me: Kind of strange that your taste in poetry ? well, based on that poem you shared here a few days ago ? seems to be for sing songy (in other words, ?nearly total repetitiveness? in the meter) work. Bill W: No criticism of the poem, from you or anyone, is going to convince me not to like it. You don't. Fine. Enough said. My point in recapping is to show the trajectory of this discussion. Maybe I?m wrong, but it certainly felt like Bill W ?sneered? at my reaction to the poem. To be fair, one might saying my calling the poem sing songy is me ?sneering? at the poem. After all, sing songy does carry a negative connotation. At least I?ve never heard anyone state unironically, ?I just love how sing songy this poem is.?;) Perhaps the bigger problem here ? one outside differences of taste and whether one?s tastes might be changed ? is when one says ?I like X1 because of Y? or ?I dislike X2 because of Z.? This opens up one to the problem of disliking something else that has Y or liking still another thing that has Z. This is what happens when one tries to say why one likes or dislikes some work of art. One is moving beyond the response to offering motives or reasons ? motives or reasons that might not hold in some simple consistent fashion if they hold at all. Yes, one might still like or dislike the work ? and whether one can be persuaded to change is another matter ? but the move to explain why one likes or dislikes it can lead to mistaken explanations or mistaken generalizations. For example, maybe a certain someone finds repetitive music annoying but sing songy (in other words, repetitive) poetry enthralling. Perhaps there?s something about musical elements for this person that doesn?t apply to the elements of language in poetry (both the prosody and the meaning). In my case, too, some of the repetition in pop music I don?t find annoying ? or maybe there?s some other element that overrides being annoyed by it. It could be context too. Having music in the background or as part of a wider experience, for instance. A friend of mine once ?confessed? to liking a certain band that his other friends and me found funny by saying it reminded him of when he was in high school ? good times. The particular band brought back some of those feelings I reckon. I forget the details of the particular band, but it doesn?t matter. I imagine he might be able to articulate some reasons why he liked the band if he were being less honest ? presuming he was being honest and, what?s more, understood himself well enough. After all, maybe he just didn?t want to get into it and wasn?t going to harsh the mood by saying ?I like it. You don?t. Enough said.?;) Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 18 01:02:24 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 17:02:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <76725B5F-9D02-43D4-ADA4-90D72EFBE026@gmail.com> References: <76725B5F-9D02-43D4-ADA4-90D72EFBE026@gmail.com> Message-ID: <027401d80c07$0e8f3400$2bad9c00$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat >?A friend of mine even said he classifies his music more by decade than genre because there are too many overlaps between the genres and sub genres. So he thinks it?s easier to go by decade, despite that being arbitrary in many respects. It?s more a pragmatic decision: how can I find stuff easily?. Regards, Dan Dan after I read your commentary, it occurred to me why that decade business stopped working. If you get subscription satellite radio, genres have decades, or some of them do: 40s thru 90s, but somewhere in the 90s, digital tuning made possible jillions of radio stations, unlike the old FM dial where you really only had a few stations. With only a few stations, there was a definite mainstream sound which defined the decade, even if there were subcategories, such as traditional rock-n-roll, American Top 40, Punk, Motown sounds and so on. But once satellite radio came along? there are too many radio stations to even have a distinctive sound associated with a decade. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nuala.t at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 01:14:09 2022 From: nuala.t at gmail.com (Nuala Thomson) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 11:14:09 +1000 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: <95E9F115-0194-43D6-98EF-8A26E0BDF6BA@gmail.com> Message-ID: I love minor keys! I'm honestly surprised you noticed that. If I were to list my favourite classical pieces only ~20% would be in a major key. There is a German deathcore band called 'We Butter the Bread with Butter'. Frenetic but so upbeat. I love them too. Probably the only heavy metal that uses a major signature that I enjoy. I spend a lot of time listening to edm (psytrance and dubstep) and Australian hip hop. The heavier stuff has been back on my radar since a couple of months ago at the termination of a relationship. Screaming helps with the processing ;) Re: percussion bands. You could show me anything and I would think it was amazing. Percussionists are amazing. I can't recommend a band/group, but I do recommend a stage show called 'Stomp'. One of my favourites: https://youtu.be/lU4lVmQxHeI On Tue., Jan. 18, 2022, 03:42 William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat, < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Nuala, apparently you like frantic, chaotic music all played in a minor > key. Nothing wrong with that, but what do you listen to to get down from > that music? I would never sit and listen to your music, but probably would > like it a lot if I were high and on a dance floor! bill > > On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 10:29 PM Nuala Thomson via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Well if it's lack of repetition you're after, let me introduce to djent, >> or math metal: >> Artist: Meshuggah >> Yes they have repetitive riffs but try and count the beats ;) I'm sure if >> you can get past the brutality you'll enjoy it. >> https://youtu.be/a1zFJKPOnXg >> >> Artist: Tesseract >> Fair bit of jazz influence and vocals may or may not be more to your >> liking. >> https://youtu.be/get0cXOsSXg >> >> Artist: Animals as Leaders >> Purely instrumental. This is the song that got them as famous as they >> will probably ever get. There are some repetitive sections but they lead >> somewhere. >> https://youtu.be/q0ZrF7taMHA >> >> Artist: The Ocean >> I'm going to send 2 because my favourite song is highly repetitive and >> that wasn't my point here. I think it just needs sharing. >> https://youtu.be/EaeFVhENrb8 >> Title of the album: Precambrian >> The titles of the songs go by layers of the ocean. >> This is the album: https://youtu.be/5TISfxNI_yM >> In my opinion it's a master piece. The first few songs are aggressive, >> tumultuous, violent, as is the surface of the ocean. The deeper you go the >> calmer it gets. >> >> If you wish I also recommend Russian Circles. They're also instrumental, >> less math more beauty. Highly repetitive but it always builds to something. >> And Metallica's Call of Cthulu is beautiful. But I'm biased towards >> ANYTHING Lovecraftian. >> As for sub genres, I get a huge laugh that Christian Deathcore exists. >> >> On Mon., Jan. 17, 2022, 12:53 Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat, < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Jan 16, 2022, at 3:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>> I knew that there were a lot of genres. To my extremely limited musical >>> taste, there's classical and there's 'other', which I called pop. >>> >>> >>> That?s fine if idiosyncratic. I mean it puts you at odds with ordinary >>> usage, and it does lead to confusion. I would?ve made very different >>> choices if I knew you simply meant ?non-classical.? For instance, I >>> probably would?ve listed Polyphia and other recent ?progressive? or >>> instrumental rock bands. >>> >>> (Non-classical is also a problematic term. Are Johann Strauss II waltzes >>> classical or popular? I would classify them in the latter category, but >>> perhaps they fit into both. This is kind of like high/low distinction in >>> art generally, where there are plenty of artists that span the distinction, >>> such as Shakespeare. SF (and just any ?genre? fiction) is almost almost >>> classified as low art by critics and theorists and ignored. This has >>> changed a little recently, though I still run into people under my age who >>> presume SF, horror, mystery, etc. are not or can?t be serious art. And >>> often the exceptions are reclassified as not genre writers. So, if someone >>> like Cormack McCarthy writes a Western (which is like almost all of his >>> work), they?re not seen as Westerns, but as literary fiction. In SF, Kurt >>> Vonnegut gets welcomed by the literary establishment, but I bet it?ll be a >>> few decades before the current crop of sophisticated SF writers are. >>> Reminds me of how the Nobel was looked down upon because epic poetry was >>> the obvious form of high art in narrative literature.) >>> >>> Katy Perry - one of the funniest things I ever saw: one costume >>> featured large lollipops affixed to her breasts. >>> I wonder if part of her act is a sendup. A satire. >>> >>> Jazz - I heard Dave Brubeck Quartet in concert in Hyannis Port in 1962. >>> It turned out that Brubeck's is the only jazz I like (he was >>> classically trained by Milhaud and wrote classical music). I do like some >>> pre-1950 jazz. >>> >>> >>> Many jazz artists are classically trained, even after Brubeck. Keith >>> Jarrett, Chick Corea, Jan Garbarek, Wynton Marsalis, and Herbie Hancock all >>> started with classical training. I wouldn?t make classical training the >>> disideratum of playing great jazz, but, if that?s what you?re looking for, >>> there?s them. ;) >>> >>> I did say no review, but I was lying. In Dan's post he mentioned >>> Sandstorm, so I heard it on Youtube. Extremely annoying. Also Astronomia >>> - not as annoying but plenty annoying. >>> >>> >>> Dance music, in general, tends to be like that. The Strauss waltzes come >>> to mind and a lot of classical ballet music. >>> >>> By the way, I mentioned those two pieces to make a point. I wasn?t >>> offering them as my favorites. Similarly for Katy Perry. I believe most >>> people would agree Perry is pop and Darude and Tony Ivy are not pop ? even >>> though all three are ?popular.? >>> >>> Is there a genre where nearly total repetitiveness is not present? The >>> songs varied only in the voice part - the background was totally >>> repetitive. I wonder at the musicians who play it. I would be absolutely >>> bored out of my mind, if anything was left of it after doing it for a few >>> years. More later. bill w >>> >>> >>> Kind of strange that your taste in poetry ? well, based on that poem you >>> shared here a few days ago ? seems to be for sing songy (in other words, >>> ?nearly total repetitiveness? in the meter) work. ;) >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Dan >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 02:31:37 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2022 18:31:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: <027401d80c07$0e8f3400$2bad9c00$@rainier66.com> References: <027401d80c07$0e8f3400$2bad9c00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <3345B6AD-1287-424A-8F03-1D1C94735DAF@gmail.com> On Jan 17, 2022, at 5:04 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote:? > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > > >?A friend of mine even said he classifies his music more by decade than genre because there are too many overlaps between the genres and sub genres. So he thinks it?s easier to go by decade, despite that being arbitrary in many respects. It?s more a pragmatic decision: how can I find stuff easily?. > > Regards, Dan > > > Dan after I read your commentary, it occurred to me why that decade business stopped working. If you get subscription satellite radio, genres have decades, or some of them do: 40s thru 90s, but somewhere in the 90s, digital tuning made possible jillions of radio stations, unlike the old FM dial where you really only had a few stations. With only a few stations, there was a definite mainstream sound which defined the decade, even if there were subcategories, such as traditional rock-n-roll, American Top 40, Punk, Motown sounds and so on. > > But once satellite radio came along? there are too many radio stations to even have a distinctive sound associated with a decade. My friend was just using that for his listening purposes. He also told me he has categories ? I?m guessing this is Apple Music ? like demo, live performance, and (shudders!) Christmas music. But your point is interesting. I wonder if there is nonetheless a 2000s or 2010s sound. Definitely, autotune has become ever more used and how pop music is made today is very different from how it was made decades ago. I mean the composition and production process today tends to be much more controlled and monitored. So maybe if we revisit this fifty years from now it?ll be easier to determine what sort of divisions work. That said, even listening to music of previous decades there are oddballs and outliers and it?s not like in 1970, the Sixties sound ended abruptly to be replaced by the Seventies sound, right? (I?m always surprised when people play certain pieces that to my ear don?t sound like they?re Sixties ones and they are. For instance, I thought Gerry and the Pacemakers came way before the 1960s. Of course, I wasn?t around then, so maybe this has more to do with my idiosyncratic sampling of the decades.) Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 23:28:55 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 23:28:55 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot Message-ID: Once Tesla issues the complete self-driving autopilot package the human in the car will no longer be driving. The car might not even have a steering wheel or any vehicle controls. So if two Tesla cars crash at a junction, will they argue about which car was at fault? This could be the start of AIs becoming self-conscious. BillK From ben at zaiboc.net Tue Jan 18 19:53:25 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 19:53:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] music survey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Not keen on most of the examples posted so far. I like Chicane, particularly 'Far from the Maddening Crowds': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltpCS5P0zCw&list=PLA7B0F6C3F5944A7E Ben From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 01:33:14 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 18:33:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Is self-conscious, different than self-aware? I would say not. A tesla is already self aware or aware of itself (including it's color - though only abstractly) as it must know where itself is, and where it needs to go, while keeping itself from hitting other things.... On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 4:30 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Once Tesla issues the complete self-driving autopilot package the > human in the car will no longer be driving. The car might not even > have a steering wheel or any vehicle controls. > So if two Tesla cars crash at a junction, will they argue about which > car was at fault? > This could be the start of AIs becoming self-conscious. > > 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 dsunley at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 01:45:17 2022 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 18:45:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A Tesla's auto-drive function is basically a visual cortex hard-wired to a motor cortex. A human being with similar capabilities would not, I think, be considered "conscious" or "self-aware". "Twitching catatonia" is the term that comes vividly to mind. Too much hardware is still missing. A Tesla is basically a fly that's been lobotomized to eliminate any agent-y behavior, and repurposed to deal with traffic. Very impressive, but not a direct-line precursor of anything that can have and hold an opinion. On Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 6:35 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Is self-conscious, different than self-aware? I would say not. > A tesla is already self aware or aware of itself (including it's color - > though only abstractly) as it must know where itself is, and where it needs > to go, while keeping itself from hitting other things.... > > > > On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 4:30 PM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Once Tesla issues the complete self-driving autopilot package the >> human in the car will no longer be driving. The car might not even >> have a steering wheel or any vehicle controls. >> So if two Tesla cars crash at a junction, will they argue about which >> car was at fault? >> This could be the start of AIs becoming self-conscious. >> >> 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 spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 19 02:00:33 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 18:00:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot Once Tesla issues the complete self-driving autopilot package the human in the car will no longer be driving. The car might not even have a steering wheel or any vehicle controls. So if two Tesla cars crash at a junction, will they argue about which car was at fault? This could be the start of AIs becoming self-conscious. BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or does it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no steering wheel, the company is at fault. I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is available, drive my own damn self until then. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 02:16:51 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 13:16:51 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 12:34, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Is self-conscious, different than self-aware? I would say not. > A tesla is already self aware or aware of itself (including it's color - > though only abstractly) as it must know where itself is, and where it needs > to go, while keeping itself from hitting other things.... > I agree, I think that consciousness emerges from intelligent behaviour, but I?m surprised that you would say this. On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 4:30 PM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Once Tesla issues the complete self-driving autopilot package the >> human in the car will no longer be driving. The car might not even >> have a steering wheel or any vehicle controls. >> So if two Tesla cars crash at a junction, will they argue about which >> car was at fault? >> This could be the start of AIs becoming self-conscious. >> >> 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 > Virus-free. www.avast.com <#m_3316984064507926202_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 02:19:57 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 13:19:57 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 13:01, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat > Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot > > Once Tesla issues the complete self-driving autopilot package the human in > the car will no longer be driving. The car might not even have a steering > wheel or any vehicle controls. > So if two Tesla cars crash at a junction, will they argue about which car > was at fault? > This could be the start of AIs becoming self-conscious. > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > > > > BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or does > it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a > steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no > steering wheel, the company is at fault. > At some point it won't be the company that is at fault, but the car itself. > I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is available, > drive my own damn self until then. > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- 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 Wed Jan 19 02:35:20 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 18:35:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00ed01d80cdd$3462b720$9d282560$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat ? _______________________________________________ >>?BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or does it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no steering wheel, the company is at fault. >?At some point it won't be the company that is at fault, but the car itself. Ja, but irrelevant. Teams of hungry lawyers will not sue a car. They will go after the company which built it. If anyone owns a no-steering-wheel car, my sincere advice is never get near it with a wrench. Never do anything which would cause you to hold any liability. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 02:56:33 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 13:56:33 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <00ed01d80cdd$3462b720$9d282560$@rainier66.com> References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> <00ed01d80cdd$3462b720$9d282560$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 13:36, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > *?* > _______________________________________________ > > > > >>?BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or > does > it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a > steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no > steering wheel, the company is at fault. > > > > >?At some point it won't be the company that is at fault, but the car > itself. > > > > Ja, but irrelevant. Teams of hungry lawyers will not sue a car. They > will go after the company which built it. > If cars become as intelligent and as conscious as humans there would be no reason for them not to have the same rights and responsibilities as humans, although no doubt there will be a movement to keep them enslaved. > If anyone owns a no-steering-wheel car, my sincere advice is never get > near it with a wrench. Never do anything which would cause you to hold any > liability. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 19 03:14:25 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 19:14:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> <00ed01d80cdd$3462b720$9d282560$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000c01d80ce2$aa077fb0$fe167f10$@rainier66.com> >?> On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 13:36, spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: ? Ja, but irrelevant. Teams of hungry lawyers will not sue a car. They will go after the company which built it. >?If cars become as intelligent and as conscious as humans there would be no reason for them not to have the same rights and responsibilities as humans, although no doubt there will be a movement to keep them enslaved? Stathis Ja. We already have a situation in which lawsuits focus on whoever has the most money. In many cases, the prole which caused the damage has no money, so that person is clearly innocent. Whoever hired her might have something worth suing away, so that person might have some fault. On up it goes until the lawyers sense a potential payday. We can solve the control problems. We are nowhere near solving the legal problems. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 04:17:14 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 21:17:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 7:18 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 12:34, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Is self-conscious, different than self-aware? I would say not. >> A tesla is already self aware or aware of itself (including it's color - >> though only abstractly) as it must know where itself is, and where it needs >> to go, while keeping itself from hitting other things.... >> > I agree, I think that consciousness emerges from intelligent behaviour, > but I?m surprised that you would say this. > All I'm agreeing with is that the Tesla can "function" identically to any self awareness or self conscious functionality. But the word "red" (all a the tesla knows about it's color) needs a dictionary to know what it means, while the quality of our redness knowledge is the definition of red, no dictionary required. One is like something (conscious) the other is purposely abstracted away from any physical qualities, any of which could be representing such, but only if you have a the necessary to achieve such substrate independence, dictionary. On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 7:24 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 13:01, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or >> does >> it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a >> steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no >> steering wheel, the company is at fault. >> > > At some point it won't be the company that is at fault, but the car itself. > This I do agree with, for both abstract and phenomenally conscious systems, both with functionally equally responsibility. On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 8:15 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > *>?*> *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 13:36, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Ja, but irrelevant. Teams of hungry lawyers will not sue a car. They > will go after the company which built it. > > >?If cars become as intelligent and as conscious as humans there would be > no reason for them not to have the same rights and responsibilities as > humans, although no doubt there will be a movement to keep them enslaved? > Stathis > > > > Ja. We already have a situation in which lawsuits focus on whoever has > the most money. In many cases, the prole which caused the damage has no > money, so that person is clearly innocent. Whoever hired her might have > something worth suing away, so that person might have some fault. On up it > goes until the lawyers sense a potential payday. > > > > We can solve the control problems. We are nowhere near solving the legal > problems. > We're getting there (Canonizer's goal) I so hate it how my "partially" closed loop insulin pump shuts down, and refuses to make any decisions, if there is even an extremely remote possibility their "decision" for programming could be culpable in ANY way. Always selfishly pushing all that responsibility onto the many times far less capable humans to make all those mistakes. I sure hope that some day, when some poor bloke dies, in hypoglycemic unconsciousness, due to this behavior, the company finally has to pay up for their selfish unwillingness to take responsibility, when they easily could have avoided such a death by taking responsibility, so the pendulum can finally swinging back towards true justice. I believe the bottom line is, we can and should all help as much as possible, and should all take responsibility, whenever possible. That's the difference between top down and bottom up - who is responsible? To no longer be damned, we simply need to stop sitting around waiting for some God, at the top of some hierarchy, to save us. Just do it. Brent -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 09:43:34 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 01:43:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <2A2C8A35-4616-49CD-9DD7-1E6D013FE1F9@gmail.com> On Jan 18, 2022, at 6:02 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or does > it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a > steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no > steering wheel, the company is at fault. > > I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is available, > drive my own damn self until then. I thought ? and I confess I might not be as apprised of this issue as others here ? that the legal liability issues haven?t been settled. I thought the feds were still gathering data, lawsuits are still in progress, and various states (in the US) have started to write some laws on this but it?s not anywhere given to a simple rule as you put it above. Regards, Dan From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 19 12:47:58 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 04:47:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <2A2C8A35-4616-49CD-9DD7-1E6D013FE1F9@gmail.com> References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> <2A2C8A35-4616-49CD-9DD7-1E6D013FE1F9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <001e01d80d32$c9f9b220$5ded1660$@rainier66.com> > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot On Jan 18, 2022, at 6:02 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >...> BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or > does it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car > has a steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is > liable. If no steering wheel, the company is at fault. > > I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is > available, drive my own damn self until then. >...I thought ? and I confess I might not be as apprised of this issue as others here ? that the legal liability issues haven?t been settled. I thought the feds were still gathering data, lawsuits are still in progress, and various states (in the US) have started to write some laws on this but it?s not anywhere given to a simple rule as you put it above. Regards, Dan _______________________________________________ Dan as I understand it, if a car has standard controls, it doesn't matter if it is capable of self-driving, the person behind the wheel is responsible for what the car does. If it doesn't have a steering wheel, the occupants are the equivalent of passengers. Any company selling something they claim is mechanically competent to take on the responsibility of moving people is taking the legal liability associated with that awesome responsibility. Until some Telsa-scale corporation is willing to stand behind one of these rigs, I will not buy. spike From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 14:20:20 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 14:20:20 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <001e01d80d32$c9f9b220$5ded1660$@rainier66.com> References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> <2A2C8A35-4616-49CD-9DD7-1E6D013FE1F9@gmail.com> <001e01d80d32$c9f9b220$5ded1660$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 12:50, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Dan as I understand it, if a car has standard controls, it doesn't matter if it is capable of self-driving, the person behind the wheel is responsible for what the car does. If it doesn't have a steering wheel, the occupants are the equivalent of passengers. Any company selling something they claim is mechanically competent to take on the responsibility of moving people is taking the legal liability associated with that awesome responsibility. > > Until some Telsa-scale corporation is willing to stand behind one of these rigs, I will not buy. > > spike > _______________________________________________ You mean product liability. But there are exceptions to that law. e.g. vaccines. Pharma demands a 'no liability' clause before they will provide their vaccine. Presumably because they know that some people will have a very bad reaction to the injection. They don't know how many, but 'too many' might mean bankruptcy. It is a cost-benefit analysis. Say, 300 million lives saved against 200,000 killed or injured. But 200,000 sueballs would be too much. The same principle might apply to Tesla. Accidents avoided versus accidents caused. It's a tricky choice when lives are at stake. BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 20:35:11 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 15:35:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 9:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or does > it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a > steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no > steering wheel, the company is at fault. > > I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is available, > drive my own damn self until then. > > ### What if independent, reliable, trusted third parties certified this car with steering wheel to be 10x safer as a driver than you are? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 21:02:20 2022 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 14:02:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: At this point you'd have a hard time finding an "independant, reliable" third party that 50% of the country would trust to certify that the sky was blue. On Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 1:37 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 9:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or >> does >> it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a >> steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no >> steering wheel, the company is at fault. >> >> I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is available, >> drive my own damn self until then. >> >> ### What if independent, reliable, trusted third parties certified this > car with steering wheel to be 10x safer as a driver than you are? > > 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 danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 21:11:21 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 13:11:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <001e01d80d32$c9f9b220$5ded1660$@rainier66.com> References: <001e01d80d32$c9f9b220$5ded1660$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <4B6DDC16-BB2E-4B7C-A3D3-F6DCF9204BD3@gmail.com> On Jan 19, 2022, at 4:50 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot > >> On Jan 18, 2022, at 6:02 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> ...> BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or >> does it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car >> has a steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is >> liable. If no steering wheel, the company is at fault. >> >> I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is >> available, drive my own damn self until then. > >> ...I thought ? and I confess I might not be as apprised of this issue as others here ? that the legal liability issues haven?t been settled. I thought the feds were still gathering data, lawsuits are still in progress, and various states (in the US) have started to write some laws on this but it?s not anywhere given to a simple rule as you put it above. > > Regards, > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > > Dan as I understand it, if a car has standard controls, it doesn't matter if it is capable of self-driving, the person behind the wheel is responsible for what the car does. If it doesn't have a steering wheel, the occupants are the equivalent of passengers. Any company selling something they claim is mechanically competent to take on the responsibility of moving people is taking the legal liability associated with that awesome responsibility. Where are you getting this from? Are there laws or legal precedents with ?self-driving? vehicles that makes these distinctions? Or do you just believe this because it makes sense to you? > Until some Telsa-scale corporation is willing to stand behind one of these rigs, I will not buy. Well, Tesla has been and is involved in law suits over this now. I don?t think everything has been hammered out. Look at the 02016 Williston, FL case. Two different federal government agencies can up with different conclusions ? driver ultimately responsible (NHTSA) vs operational design led to driver ?overreliance? on automation (NTSB). I?m no lawyer, but I imagine any decent lawyer can make a case either way ? meaning from two different agencies having different takes, one can argue the manufacturer is (mostly if not totally) at fault or that the driver is (mostly if not totally) at fault. AFAIK, the feds in the US are still gathering data, cases are still ongoing, and there?re no uniform rules across the various states much less across the globe. Regards, Dan From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 19 21:12:57 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 13:12:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003a01d80d79$55ba8280$012f8780$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 9:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or does it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no steering wheel, the company is at fault. I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is available, drive my own damn self until then. ### What if independent, reliable, trusted third parties certified this car with steering wheel to be 10x safer as a driver than you are? Rafal ?then that car is the wet dream of the lawsuit industry. Currently some stupid prole causes an accident, she doesn?t have anything and the car company isn?t liable. The steering-wheel car is way safer but that is still a tenth as many accidents, and those have deep pockets behind them. Rafal being a doctor you know aaaaaalllll about the American lawsuit industry. All doctors are lawyers in a sense. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 21:37:03 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 15:37:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) Message-ID: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00127-1?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=071876d218-briefing-dy-20220119&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-071876d218-44834745 bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 21:41:24 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 13:41:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What about this article about the Tonga volcano did you wish to call to our attention? On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 1:39 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00127-1?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=071876d218-briefing-dy-20220119&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-071876d218-44834745 > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 21:47:44 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 15:47:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Gravity waves never seen before: I assumed that some of you would be interested. Bad assumption? bill w On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 3:46 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What about this article about the Tonga volcano did you wish to call to > our attention? > > On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 1:39 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00127-1?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=071876d218-briefing-dy-20220119&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-071876d218-44834745 >> bill w >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 19 21:56:56 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 13:56:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006b01d80d7f$7ab1f400$7015dc00$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Darin Sunley via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot >?At this point you'd have a hard time finding an "independant, reliable" third party that 50% of the country would trust to certify that the sky was blue? Darin It isn?t always blue! Whaddya trying to push some commie agenda on us? But you are right Darin. If covid has any other positive outcomes, it certainly helped build distrust in government. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 19 22:01:41 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 14:01:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <4B6DDC16-BB2E-4B7C-A3D3-F6DCF9204BD3@gmail.com> References: <001e01d80d32$c9f9b220$5ded1660$@rainier66.com> <4B6DDC16-BB2E-4B7C-A3D3-F6DCF9204BD3@gmail.com> Message-ID: <007201d80d80$2422e030$6c68a090$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat ... > _______________________________________________ > >>... Dan as I understand it, if a car has standard controls, it doesn't matter if it is capable of self-driving, the person behind the wheel is responsible for what the car does. If it doesn't have a steering wheel, the occupants are the equivalent of passengers. Any company selling something they claim is mechanically competent to take on the responsibility of moving people is taking the legal liability associated with that awesome responsibility. >...Where are you getting this from? Are there laws or legal precedents with ?self-driving? vehicles that makes these distinctions?... Dan Universal truth: lawyers will sue toward the money. The more money you have, the more likely you will be sued. No mystery there. When I got my PE license, a lot of the training was toward all the new legal liability I was holding if I design anything under that stamp. They emphasized to make sure I was paid for the cost of the liability required to cover it. spike From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 22:18:00 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 14:18:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Gravity waves from Tonga In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The bad assumption was that we would notice without so much as a proper subject line. On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 1:51 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Gravity waves never seen before: I assumed that some of you would be > interested. Bad assumption? bill w > > On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 3:46 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> What about this article about the Tonga volcano did you wish to call to >> our attention? >> >> On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 1:39 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00127-1?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=071876d218-briefing-dy-20220119&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-071876d218-44834745 >>> bill w >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 19 22:26:13 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 14:26:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008001d80d83$91afe410$b50fac30$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] (no subject) >?Gravity waves never seen before: I assumed that some of you would be interested. Bad assumption? bill w It was an odd choice of words by Nature. The term gravity waves have a specific and currently very important meaning. I don?t see how the atmospheric effects would be applicable to this term. Nature can do better than this. spike On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 3:46 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > wrote: What about this article about the Tonga volcano did you wish to call to our attention? On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 1:39 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00127-1?utm_source=Nature+Briefing &utm_campaign=071876d218-briefing-dy-20220119&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-071876d218-44834745 bill w _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 00:11:47 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 16:11:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <006b01d80d7f$7ab1f400$7015dc00$@rainier66.com> References: <006b01d80d7f$7ab1f400$7015dc00$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <7E353EB8-1346-4AEC-8B12-EF03DBA5116A@gmail.com> On Jan 19, 2022, at 1:58 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?> On Behalf Of Darin Sunley via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot > > >?At this point you'd have a hard time finding an "independant, reliable" third party that 50% of the country would trust to certify that the sky was blue? Darin > > It isn?t always blue! Whaddya trying to push some commie agenda on us? > > But you are right Darin. If covid has any other positive outcomes, it certainly helped build distrust in government. > What I see, though, is this distrust simply is partisan. Republican-leaning people distrust government ? except when Republicans are in power. (And there?s also the fact that though they might say they always distrust government, they never distrust the spear tip of government power: the police and the military.) Democratic leaning people likewise distrust government ? except when Democrats are in power. Much of American anti-government attitudes tend to be shallow in this respect. In a similar vein, I have a libertarian friend who?s big into conspiracy theories. One of his arguments is that even if I believe most conspiracy theories are wrong they?re beneficial because they make people distrust the government and the establishment. But, it seems to me and much data-based analysis back this, this is not what happens. Instead, it has little impact and people?s respective ideologies. It doesn?t churn out anarchists but usually just reinforces preconceived views about government and who should be calling the shots. So, it?s a happy fantasy that buying into QAnon or whatever crap Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson are pushing will convert people into libertarians. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 06:17:40 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:17:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <008001d80d83$91afe410$b50fac30$@rainier66.com> References: <008001d80d83$91afe410$b50fac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Gravity waves *is* the term for that atmospheric phenomenon, though. It's not a new term. I'd reckon it is probably older in terms of consistent usage than the cosmology/physics term, tbh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_wave On Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 5:27 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] (no subject) > > > > >?Gravity waves never seen before: I assumed that some of you would be > interested. Bad assumption? bill w > > > > > > It was an odd choice of words by Nature. The term gravity waves have a > specific and currently very important meaning. I don?t see how the > atmospheric effects would be applicable to this term. Nature can do better > than this. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 3:46 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > What about this article about the Tonga volcano did you wish to call to > our attention? > > > > On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 1:39 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00127-1?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=071876d218-briefing-dy-20220119&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-071876d218-44834745 > bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 06:34:47 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:34:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 4:02 PM Darin Sunley wrote: > At this point you'd have a hard time finding an "independant, reliable" > third party that 50% of the country would trust to certify that the sky was > blue. > ### Sure, but then Spike doesn't need a party that everybody trusts, he only needs parties that *he* trusts to make decisions. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 06:48:39 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:48:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <003a01d80d79$55ba8280$012f8780$@rainier66.com> References: <00c901d80cd8$587dd360$09797a20$@rainier66.com> <003a01d80d79$55ba8280$012f8780$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 4:13 PM wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 9:02 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > BillK, it's a critical question: does the car have a steering wheel or does > it not? In the USA, it is aaaaalll about liability. If the car has a > steering wheel and the autopilot screws up, the driver is liable. If no > steering wheel, the company is at fault. > > I have half a mind to wait until the no-steering-wheel car is available, > drive my own damn self until then. > > ### What if independent, reliable, trusted third parties certified this > car with steering wheel to be 10x safer as a driver than you are? > > > > Rafal > > > > > > ?then that car is the wet dream of the lawsuit industry. Currently some > stupid prole causes an accident, she doesn?t have anything and the car > company isn?t liable. The steering-wheel car is way safer but that is > still a tenth as many accidents, and those have deep pockets behind them. > ### What if the deep pockets refuse to sell the car to proles that don't have liability insurance that explicitly covers all accidents caused by the car on a strict liability basis? Since we know the car is in reality 10x safer, we know that the total amount of harms caused by the car is 10x lower and therefore the market-equilibrium insurance premiums will be almost 10x lower as well, at least as long as the legal system does not differentiate between harms caused by human-driven vs. self-driving cars (i.e. a leg broken by either type of car gets paid the same damages). Even stupid proles would choose the car that's 10x cheaper to insure. I don't see how in this situation the existence of self-driven cars, regardless of whether they have steering wheels or not, would be a boon to the lawsuit industry. There would be 10x fewer accidents to sue about. ------------------------------ > > > Rafal being a doctor you know aaaaaalllll about the American lawsuit > industry. All doctors are lawyers in a sense. > > > ### Dunno. The impact of lawsuits on the medical industry in the US is often exaggerated, except in the case of OB/GYN. I pay about 4k per year for malpractice insurance. This is a drop in the bucket. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 06:52:38 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:52:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <7E353EB8-1346-4AEC-8B12-EF03DBA5116A@gmail.com> References: <006b01d80d7f$7ab1f400$7015dc00$@rainier66.com> <7E353EB8-1346-4AEC-8B12-EF03DBA5116A@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 7:14 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > So, it?s a happy fantasy that buying into QAnon or whatever crap Alex > Jones or Tucker Carlson are pushing will convert people into libertarians. > ### You think Tucker Carlson is pushing "crap"? Hmm. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 07:07:34 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 23:07:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <007201d80d80$2422e030$6c68a090$@rainier66.com> References: <007201d80d80$2422e030$6c68a090$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <66B7499D-B970-44C1-A75E-053AEECFEA05@gmail.com> On Jan 19, 2022, at 2:03 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > ... >> _______________________________________________ >> >>> ... Dan as I understand it, if a car has standard controls, it doesn't matter if it is capable of self-driving, the person behind the wheel is responsible for what the car does. If it doesn't have a steering wheel, the occupants are the equivalent of passengers. Any company selling something they claim is mechanically competent to take on the responsibility of moving people is taking the legal liability associated with that awesome responsibility. > >> ...Where are you getting this from? Are there laws or legal precedents with ?self-driving? vehicles that makes these distinctions?... Dan > > Universal truth: lawyers will sue toward the money. The more money you have, the more likely you will be sued. No mystery there. When I got my PE license, a lot of the training was toward all the new legal liability I was holding if I design anything under that stamp. They emphasized to make sure I was paid for the cost of the liability required to cover it. How I?m interpreting this: You?re just saying stuff you believe is the case but isn?t actually backed up by anything like looking at the cases or looking at the laws or even the history of law. It?s like people who believe finders-keepers is a rock solid rule and decide to keep whatever they find, including pets. Anyhow, my belief here is this isn?t settled law yet, especially not in the US. Sure, anyone can make predictions, but falling back on ?lawyers will sue toward the money? don?t tell us much. (Why? How the money flows will depend on court decisions, legislation, regulations, how riled up the public gets, and how the industry reacts ? and all this interacting together. It?ll likely play out differently in different areas and might not be settled for some time.) Regards, Dan From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 07:25:26 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 23:25:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B72C584-DBBB-4FF4-B7D2-8BD824907D5D@gmail.com> On Jan 19, 2022, at 10:56 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: >> On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 7:14 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat wrote: >> So, it?s a happy fantasy that buying into QAnon or whatever crap Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson are pushing will convert people into libertarians. > > ### You think Tucker Carlson is pushing "crap"? > > Hmm. Yes, most of the time he is. Need an example to help you here. How about: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/04/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlsons-conspiracy-theory-about-fbi-and-ja/ Most of the time he?s in outrage mode. Heck, even his network?s lawyers ? just like Alex Jones? ? said he?s playing to his audience and shouldn?t be taken seriously. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 20 14:02:33 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 06:02:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: <008001d80d83$91afe410$b50fac30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004101d80e06$5f939610$1ebac230$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] (no subject) >?Gravity waves *is* the term for that atmospheric phenomenon, though. It's not a new term. I'd reckon it is probably older in terms of consistent usage than the cosmology/physics term, tbh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_wave Oh OK cool thanks Will. An idea occurred to me before I read the wiki article on it: you would need two different terms to describe waves in the atmosphere. There would be sound waves, which involve compression. If your friend is talking to you from across the room, the molecules move horizontally first toward you then toward her, but don?t move much. That would be a compression wave, but the atmosphere could also have (under some weird circumstances (like this one)) something like ocean waves, or rather more like the ripples spreading on the surface of a pond when you toss in a stone. Makes sense they would call that an atmospheric gravity wave. OK Nature, I retract my original comment. That is one of the unfortunate times where a term is just overworked. I have been watching gravity waves from merging black holes. It never occurred to me something could cause waves of air, but come to think about it, a nuclear bomb would do that too. OK now I will go read the Wiki article. spike On Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 5:27 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] (no subject) >?Gravity waves never seen before: I assumed that some of you would be interested. Bad assumption? bill w It was an odd choice of words by Nature. The term gravity waves have a specific and currently very important meaning. I don?t see how the atmospheric effects would be applicable to this term. Nature can do better than this. spike On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 3:46 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > wrote: What about this article about the Tonga volcano did you wish to call to our attention? On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 1:39 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00127-1?utm_source=Nature+Briefing &utm_campaign=071876d218-briefing-dy-20220119&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-071876d218-44834745 bill w _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 20 14:13:54 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 06:13:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <4B72C584-DBBB-4FF4-B7D2-8BD824907D5D@gmail.com> References: <4B72C584-DBBB-4FF4-B7D2-8BD824907D5D@gmail.com> Message-ID: <004f01d80e07$f5f76220$e1e62660$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot On Jan 19, 2022, at 10:56 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat ### You think Tucker Carlson is pushing "crap"? Hmm. >?Yes, most of the time he is. Need an example to help you here. How about: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/04/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlsons-conspiracy-theory-about-fbi-and-ja/ Regards, Dan Dan, Politifact wrote that entire article never mentioning the name Ray Epps. Why should we take Politifact seriously if they don?t include that name? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 20 15:02:23 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 07:02:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <66B7499D-B970-44C1-A75E-053AEECFEA05@gmail.com> References: <007201d80d80$2422e030$6c68a090$@rainier66.com> <66B7499D-B970-44C1-A75E-053AEECFEA05@gmail.com> Message-ID: <000401d80e0e$bb7e3090$327a91b0$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot On Jan 19, 2022, at 2:03 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > -----Original Message----- ... > >>... Universal truth: lawyers will sue toward the money. The more money you have, the more likely you will be sued. No mystery there. ... >...How I?m interpreting this: You?re just saying stuff you believe is the case but isn?t actually backed up by anything like looking at the cases or looking at the laws or even the history of law...Dan _______________________________________________ Dan, do let me calmly assure you: lawyers will sue toward the money. Spike's Law it is, far more reliable than the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of physics, etc. It is universal now and will always be reliable, for they will not sue if there isn't a potential payday somewhere in there and if not will not. Even if we manage some kind of indemnity as a special case for self-driving cars, accidents will not be completely eliminated and lawyers will sue toward the money. Do let me assure you sir, that will never change. This observation is not to disparage lawyers. If I practiced law instead of engineering, I too would sue toward the money. I don't expect anyone to do otherwise. What remains to be seen is if sufficient stock buyers will bet against Spike's Law to fund a company to make cars without a steering wheel. That one I don't know. spike From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jan 20 15:11:32 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 15:11:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Gravity Waves vs. Gravitational Waves In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43f23dcf-0ff3-98e6-5672-bb265b2ecda0@zaiboc.net> On 20/01/2022 06:18, Spike wrote: > > It was an odd choice of words by Nature.? The term gravity waves have > a specific and currently very important meaning.? I don?t see how the > atmospheric effects would be applicable to this term.? Nature can do > better than this. > > spike > I think you mean Gravitational Waves, spike. Ben -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 20 15:25:34 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 07:25:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Gravity Waves vs. Gravitational Waves In-Reply-To: <43f23dcf-0ff3-98e6-5672-bb265b2ecda0@zaiboc.net> References: <43f23dcf-0ff3-98e6-5672-bb265b2ecda0@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <000701d80e11$f860b570$e9222050$@rainier66.com> ..> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Gravity Waves vs. Gravitational Waves On 20/01/2022 06:18, Spike wrote: It was an odd choice of words by Nature. The term gravity waves have a specific and currently very important meaning. I don't see how the atmospheric effects would be applicable to this term. Nature can do better than this. spike I think you mean Gravitational Waves, spike. Ben Ja. The terms gravitational waves and gravity waves are in use with respect to the LIGO results. I don't do much with atmospheric science, so I wasn't aware they use the term to describe waves of air in the atmosphere, where the individual particles move mostly vertically. It's downright confusin I tells ya! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 00:02:39 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2022 19:02:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Twos Message-ID: I want to take a selfie of myself holding a clock at 2 am, 22 minutes, 22 seconds, on February 22nd, the year 2222. 2x12 FTW! -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 00:34:47 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2022 16:34:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot Message-ID: <35FDF04B-8009-4DB0-A736-757C33C90E48@gmail.com> ?On Jan 20, 2022, at 7:04 AM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > ...> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot > > On Jan 19, 2022, at 2:03 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> -----Original Message----- > ... >> >>> ... Universal truth: lawyers will sue toward the money. The more money you have, the more likely you will be sued. No mystery there. ... > >> ...How I?m interpreting this: You?re just saying stuff you believe is the case but isn?t actually backed up by anything like looking at the cases or looking at the laws or even the history of law...Dan > _________________________________________ > > Dan, do let me calmly assure you: lawyers will sue toward the money. Spike's Law it is, far more reliable than the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of physics, etc. It is universal now and will always be reliable, for they will not sue if there isn't a potential payday somewhere in there and if not will not. Even if we manage some kind of indemnity as a special case for self-driving cars, accidents will not be completely eliminated and lawyers will sue toward the money. Do let me assure you sir, that will never change. > > This observation is not to disparage lawyers. If I practiced law instead of engineering, I too would sue toward the money. I don't expect anyone to do otherwise. > > What remains to be seen is if sufficient stock buyers will bet against Spike's Law to fund a company to make cars without a steering wheel. That one I don't know. Spike, let me assure you that the statement about (most) lawyers (most of the time) suing for the _expectation_ of money is both something I?m not denying and something that tells us nothing here. Until the legal and regulatory aspects are worked out and if the technology continues to spread and mature, it?s anyone?s guess what the outcomes of specific cases will be and what the overall expectations will be from the courts and lawmakers. This is what will determine, afterward, who will likely make money. And your guesses here are just guesses, and, no offense, but having a PE doesn?t make one a legal expert much less an expert of forecasting changes in law. (And this is all repeating stuff I wrote in the post you quoted but heavily trimmed.;) Regards, Dan From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 01:27:27 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2022 17:27:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Twos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What, not the year 22222? On Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 4:05 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I want to take a selfie of myself holding a clock at 2 am, 22 minutes, 22 > seconds, on February 22nd, the year 2222. > > 2x12 FTW! > -- > 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 spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 22 01:30:37 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2022 17:30:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <35FDF04B-8009-4DB0-A736-757C33C90E48@gmail.com> References: <35FDF04B-8009-4DB0-A736-757C33C90E48@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00b801d80f2f$a8ff68e0$fafe3aa0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat > >> What remains to be seen is if sufficient stock buyers will bet against Spike's Law to fund a company to make cars without a steering wheel. That one I don't know. >...Spike, let me assure you that the statement about (most) lawyers (most of the time) suing for the _expectation_ of money is both something I?m not denying and something that tells us nothing here. Dan the observation tells us everything: investors will be scared away by the risk of lawsuits. I sure would be: I wouldn't go anywhere near that stock. I already stayed away from Tesla stock because of their adding self-driving capability. That is asking for trouble. Just thinking of all the money I lost by not betting on Tesla, oh it makes my butt hurt. >... but having a PE doesn?t make one a legal expert much less an expert of forecasting changes in law. >...Regards, Dan _______________________________________________ Having a PE license makes me the world's foremost expert on what projects I will personally work for. I wouldn't go anywhere near the place unless there was some kind of blanket indemnity for that particular activity, where courts or our legal system declared self-driving cars a kind of special case where normal tort law doesn't apply. Should self-driving car companies somehow be given blanket immunity, then stock buyers will come and controls engineers will come. I don't expect the lawsuit industry or the US legal system to offer such immunity. Writing about it does give me an idea however. All legal systems are not like the USA. We could perhaps find a city in... someplace... (where?) and set up a grand experiment where self-driving car companies cannot be sued in the event of an epic fail. spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 02:45:21 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:45:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Twos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 8:27 PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > What, not the year 22222? > > On Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 4:05 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I want to take a selfie of myself holding a clock at 2 am, 22 minutes, 22 >> seconds, on February 22nd, the year 2222. >> >> 2x12 FTW! >> -- >> >> ### Well, yes, eventually we'll get there, too but you have to wait another 20,000 years and I'm feeling impatient :) Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 09:12:51 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 04:12:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <00b801d80f2f$a8ff68e0$fafe3aa0$@rainier66.com> References: <35FDF04B-8009-4DB0-A736-757C33C90E48@gmail.com> <00b801d80f2f$a8ff68e0$fafe3aa0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 8:35 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Having a PE license makes me the world's foremost expert on what projects > I will personally work for. I wouldn't go anywhere near the place unless > there was some kind of blanket indemnity for that particular activity, > where courts or our legal system declared self-driving cars a kind of > special case where normal tort law doesn't apply. Should self-driving car > companies somehow be given blanket immunity, then stock buyers will come > and controls engineers will come. I don't expect the lawsuit industry or > the US legal system to offer such immunity. ### But why would you insist on immunity? If you are insured none of this is your headache. It's probably impossible for courts to nullify tort law for FSD and why would they, anyway? The only situation where the lawsuit industry could substantially affect FSD cars would be if juries started awarding large punitive damages in cases involving FSD. Otherwise, because of the assumed superior safety record of FSD, the relevant insurance premiums would stay well below liability premiums for regular driving. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 22 16:00:34 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 08:00:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: <35FDF04B-8009-4DB0-A736-757C33C90E48@gmail.com> <00b801d80f2f$a8ff68e0$fafe3aa0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <002b01d80fa9$314bcad0$93e36070$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 1:13 AM To: ExI chat list Cc: Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 8:35 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Having a PE license makes me the world's foremost expert on what projects I will personally work for. I wouldn't go anywhere near the place unless there was some kind of blanket indemnity for that particular activity, where courts or our legal system declared self-driving cars a kind of special case where normal tort law doesn't apply. Should self-driving car companies somehow be given blanket immunity, then stock buyers will come and controls engineers will come. I don't expect the lawsuit industry or the US legal system to offer such immunity. ### But why would you insist on immunity? If you are insured none of this is your headache. It's probably impossible for courts to nullify tort law for FSD and why would they, anyway? The only situation where the lawsuit industry could substantially affect FSD cars would be if juries started awarding large punitive damages in cases involving FSD. Otherwise, because of the assumed superior safety record of FSD, the relevant insurance premiums would stay well below liability premiums for regular driving. Rafal Rafal, we need some kind of large scale demonstration project before insurance companies will bet on this technology. I am in complete agreement that self-drivers can be built using current technology which is vastly superior to human drivers. We already have self-drivers, but they also have steering wheels and the requirement for a licensed human sitting behind the wheel taking the liability for the machine. What we need is a place where we can demonstrate the kind of self-driver which does not offer the option of a human operator. It occurred to me we have a few such places: military bases. The rules really are a bit different there. In places like China Lake Naval Weapons Center, there is a base where you must have ID to get inside the gate, must have government issued photo ID on you at all times, including children, the MPs troll around constantly, there are no homeless people, no dopers, none of the usual modern urban ills. Civilians live on that base if they qualify. The enlisted service members are not required to live on that base, for the town of Ridgecrest is right next door, but it is an option for them to live there. It is understood that the Captain is god. He says what is law there. OK China Lake naval base, something like that might work for a test bed to gather enough real-world data so that insurance companies will stand behind this (depending on how one defines the term ?real.?) China Lake NWC has streets and houses like any small town anywhere, pedestrians, pets, children, it is pretty much like anywhere else in America except every home has firearms and it is perfectly safe from crime there. You will not be shot or mugged there, your car will not be stolen, your home will not be burglarized. But other than that, it?s like any American small town. Perhaps we could test self-drivers there. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 16:11:26 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 10:11:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <002b01d80fa9$314bcad0$93e36070$@rainier66.com> References: <35FDF04B-8009-4DB0-A736-757C33C90E48@gmail.com> <00b801d80f2f$a8ff68e0$fafe3aa0$@rainier66.com> <002b01d80fa9$314bcad0$93e36070$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Short of self-driving cars, just what can the most expensive cars do? I have two 2002 Lincoln Town Cars, which of course have nothing advanced. I see commercials where the car seems to have a kind of radar warning the driver of other vehicles being too close and maybe (?) even taking over the brakes or steering (?) to avoid an accident. Parallel parking is another I see. Who knows what all these new cars can do? bill w On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 10:02 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Saturday, January 22, 2022 1:13 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* Rafal Smigrodzki > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot > > > > > > > > On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 8:35 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Having a PE license makes me the world's foremost expert on what projects > I will personally work for. I wouldn't go anywhere near the place unless > there was some kind of blanket indemnity for that particular activity, > where courts or our legal system declared self-driving cars a kind of > special case where normal tort law doesn't apply. Should self-driving car > companies somehow be given blanket immunity, then stock buyers will come > and controls engineers will come. I don't expect the lawsuit industry or > the US legal system to offer such immunity. > > > > ### But why would you insist on immunity? If you are insured none of this > is your headache. > > > > It's probably impossible for courts to nullify tort law for FSD and why > would they, anyway? > > > > The only situation where the lawsuit industry could substantially affect > FSD cars would be if juries started awarding large punitive damages in > cases involving FSD. Otherwise, because of the assumed superior safety > record of FSD, the relevant insurance premiums would stay well below > liability premiums for regular driving. > > > > Rafal > > > > > > > > Rafal, we need some kind of large scale demonstration project before > insurance companies will bet on this technology. I am in complete > agreement that self-drivers can be built using current technology which is > vastly superior to human drivers. We already have self-drivers, but they > also have steering wheels and the requirement for a licensed human sitting > behind the wheel taking the liability for the machine. > > > > What we need is a place where we can demonstrate the kind of self-driver > which does not offer the option of a human operator. It occurred to me we > have a few such places: military bases. The rules really are a bit > different there. In places like China Lake Naval Weapons Center, there is > a base where you must have ID to get inside the gate, must have government > issued photo ID on you at all times, including children, the MPs troll > around constantly, there are no homeless people, no dopers, none of the > usual modern urban ills. > > > > Civilians live on that base if they qualify. The enlisted service members > are not required to live on that base, for the town of Ridgecrest is right > next door, but it is an option for them to live there. It is understood > that the Captain is god. He says what is law there. OK China Lake naval > base, something like that might work for a test bed to gather enough > real-world data so that insurance companies will stand behind this > (depending on how one defines the term ?real.?) China Lake NWC has streets > and houses like any small town anywhere, pedestrians, pets, children, it is > pretty much like anywhere else in America except every home has firearms > and it is perfectly safe from crime there. You will not be shot or mugged > there, your car will not be stolen, your home will not be burglarized. But > other than that, it?s like any American small town. Perhaps we could test > self-drivers 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 Sat Jan 22 19:46:41 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 11:46:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> . for me to conclude that this nightmare is over. The fatality numbers rose some in Florida's omicron surge of December, but nothing like any of the three preceding waves. There is enough data and enough time now for us to conclude based on the Florida numbers that omicron doesn't slay and that it is likely to confer some immunity from Alpha and Delta. If that still-tentative second contention is true, this two-year nightmare is over. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 31572 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 30060 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 21:18:56 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 16:18:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: References: <35FDF04B-8009-4DB0-A736-757C33C90E48@gmail.com> <00b801d80f2f$a8ff68e0$fafe3aa0$@rainier66.com> <002b01d80fa9$314bcad0$93e36070$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 11:13 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Short of self-driving cars, just what can the most expensive cars do? I > have two 2002 Lincoln Town Cars, which of course have nothing advanced. I > see commercials where the car seems to have a kind of radar warning the > driver of other vehicles being too close and maybe (?) even taking over the > brakes or steering (?) to avoid an accident. Parallel parking is another I > see. > > Who knows what all these new cars can do? > Most of these are safety features, which this article covers pretty thoroughly: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cars-with-advanced-safety-systems-a7292621135/ Other features like parking are covered here: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/high-tech-car-features -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 21:55:34 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 16:55:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Unfortunately, nightmares are psychological, so it will be over when the collective fear wanes. Idk whether it will happen suddenly but I imagine it will take around another ear to peter out. Hopefully not two. I also worry about covid mandate type stuff sticking even after the virus isn't a threat, just because of the way bureaucracy works. Some of the mandates have set timespans, but for others, the local or federal legislatures will have to explicitly turn them off. For example in Philly now you can't eat (or do a lot of other stuff) inside without a vax card. I don't have one. Even after the virus is gone, who's to say they won't keep the rule around because of laziness? (Hopefully not something more malicious, but I think usually it's just laziness.) So that kinda stuff freaks me out. I'm fairly sure we will be seeing the long term effects of this for years, not just psychologically, financially, and societally, but also in terms of actual law/enforcement. On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 2:47 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > ? for me to conclude that this nightmare is over. > > > > The fatality numbers rose some in Florida?s omicron surge of December, but > nothing like any of the three preceding waves. > > > > There is enough data and enough time now for us to conclude based on the > Florida numbers that omicron doesn?t slay and that it is likely to confer > some immunity from Alpha and Delta. > > > > If that still-tentative second contention is true, this two-year nightmare > is over. > > > > 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: 31572 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 30060 bytes Desc: not available URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 22:05:25 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 14:05:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Why Michael Huemer is not an utilitarian? Message-ID: <28AC6273-F3A0-44EA-9C63-2F517996024A@gmail.com> https://fakenous.net/?p=2757 I?m not an utilitarian either, but I always thought of utilitarianism as reducing all concerns to one ? one seemingly easy to manage one. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 22:17:44 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 09:17:44 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 08:57, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Unfortunately, nightmares are psychological, so it will be over when the > collective fear wanes. Idk whether it will happen suddenly but I imagine > it will take around another ear to peter out. Hopefully not two. > > I also worry about covid mandate type stuff sticking even after the virus > isn't a threat, just because of the way bureaucracy works. Some of the > mandates have set timespans, but for others, the local or federal > legislatures will have to explicitly turn them off. For example in Philly > now you can't eat (or do a lot of other stuff) inside without a vax card. > I don't have one. Even after the virus is gone, who's to say they won't > keep the rule around because of laziness? (Hopefully not something more > malicious, but I think usually it's just laziness.) > > So that kinda stuff freaks me out. I'm fairly sure we will be seeing the > long term effects of this for years, not just psychologically, financially, > and societally, but also in terms of actual law/enforcement. > What freaks me out is seeing humans self-harming due to stupidity on a previously unimaginable scale. What will happen when, inevitably, a pandemic comes that kills more than 1% of the population? On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 2:47 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> ? for me to conclude that this nightmare is over. >> >> >> >> The fatality numbers rose some in Florida?s omicron surge of December, >> but nothing like any of the three preceding waves. >> >> >> >> There is enough data and enough time now for us to conclude based on the >> Florida numbers that omicron doesn?t slay and that it is likely to confer >> some immunity from Alpha and Delta. >> >> >> >> If that still-tentative second contention is true, this two-year >> nightmare is over. >> >> >> >> 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 > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 31572 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 30060 bytes Desc: not available URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 22:18:32 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 16:18:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] nanotech male contraception Message-ID: Can you see anyone going for this? Injected into testicles!!; bill w https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2022/01/11/heating_up_testicles_with_nanoparticles_could_be_a_form_of_male_birth_control_811420.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 22 22:25:30 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 14:25:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00f801d80fde$f769ebe0$e63dc3a0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] enough time has passed... >?Unfortunately, nightmares are psychological, so it will be over when the collective fear wanes. Idk whether it will happen suddenly but I imagine it will take around another ear to peter out. Hopefully not two? Will, I too think about that question, and realize the answer is subtle, for there is a spectrum of belief with regard to covid and the effectiveness of the countermeasures we have collectively taken. I took the Fauci ouchie, twice, both J&J, spaced 9 months apart. I oppose now and have always opposed any form of mandate on that. We had mask mandates and various other governor?s orders, but I have always ignored those, for none of them ever made it into law and none were ever enforced as far as I know. I have a neighbor over the fence who? I interrupt that comment with a question for our psychologists and psychiatrists among us: it is possible for agoraphobia to be induced by outside circumstances, or does it build from within, perhaps abetted by circumstances? I ask for a reason. ? apparently developed a form of agoraphobia as a result of the lockdowns. A little over two years ago, she and I were discussing the newly-announced disease. She was already wearing a mask at that time. I never wore one outdoors. She has not been seen outdoors since that day, two years ago. I know she is alive, because I can see her silhouette against the shade of the window facing my house. I have spoken to her on the phone exactly once, but didn?t discuss her going outdoors. Now I hafta wonder if she developed agoraphobia as a result of lockdown orders, which she interpreted as governor?s orders to stay indoors. I assured her that a governor?s order is his opinion on matters, not law, not some kind of order I am legally obligated to follow, for I do not work for the governor. She didn?t get it. Still doesn?t. Far too many Americans, even ones with foreign roots, do not fully understand the distinction between the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches of government. There is a spectrum of belief and fear about covid. Some of us recognize it is over. Some may take a year or two, some may never get over it. >?So that kinda stuff freaks me out. I'm fairly sure we will be seeing the long term effects of this for years, not just psychologically, financially, and societally, but also in terms of actual law/enforcement? Me too Will. I am far more freaked out by how the US government reacted to covid than by covid. It looks to me like they struggled to not let a perfectly good crisis go to waste. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 22 22:29:17 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 14:29:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat So that kinda stuff freaks me out. I'm fairly sure we will be seeing the long term effects of this for years, not just psychologically, financially, and societally, but also in terms of actual law/enforcement. >?What freaks me out is seeing humans self-harming due to stupidity on a previously unimaginable scale. What will happen when, inevitably, a pandemic comes that kills more than 1% of the population? We already know what will not happen: the US government has worn out their collective credibility by the most inept response imaginable. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 22:40:39 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 09:40:39 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 09:36, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > > > So that kinda stuff freaks me out. I'm fairly sure we will be seeing the > long term effects of this for years, not just psychologically, financially, > and societally, but also in terms of actual law/enforcement. > > > > >?What freaks me out is seeing humans self-harming due to stupidity on a > previously unimaginable scale. What will happen when, inevitably, a > pandemic comes that kills more than 1% of the population? > > > > > > We already know what will not happen: the US government has worn out their > collective credibility by the most inept response imaginable. > So you?re all gonna die, because the stupid and antisocial among you will be able to ignore whatever measures might possibly save you? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 23:17:23 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 17:17:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 4:42 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 09:36, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *?*> *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >> >> >> >> So that kinda stuff freaks me out. I'm fairly sure we will be seeing the >> long term effects of this for years, not just psychologically, financially, >> and societally, but also in terms of actual law/enforcement. >> >> >> >> >?What freaks me out is seeing humans self-harming due to stupidity on a >> previously unimaginable scale. What will happen when, inevitably, a >> pandemic comes that kills more than 1% of the population? >> >> >> >> >> >> We already know what will not happen: the US government has worn out >> their collective credibility by the most inept response imaginable. >> > So you?re all gonna die, because the stupid and antisocial among you will > be able to ignore whatever measures might possibly save you? > >> -- > 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 stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 23:33:32 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 10:33:32 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what > should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done > (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w > My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as mandated mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save many lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 4:42 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 09:36, spike jones via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *?*> *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >>> >>> >>> >>> So that kinda stuff freaks me out. I'm fairly sure we will be seeing >>> the long term effects of this for years, not just psychologically, >>> financially, and societally, but also in terms of actual law/enforcement. >>> >>> >>> >>> >?What freaks me out is seeing humans self-harming due to stupidity on a >>> previously unimaginable scale. What will happen when, inevitably, a >>> pandemic comes that kills more than 1% of the population? >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> We already know what will not happen: the US government has worn out >>> their collective credibility by the most inept response imaginable. >>> >> So you?re all gonna die, because the stupid and antisocial among you will >> be able to ignore whatever measures might possibly save you? >> >>> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 23:39:11 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 23:39:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 at 23:20, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w > _______________________________________________ I think it is much too early to be drawing conclusions. I worry about the long-term effects of almost everything that has happened. Long-term Covid infections, new Covid mutations, unexpected mRNA vaccine effects, population psychological effects, Government powers that won't be removed, all the undetected other illnesses developing while everyone was concentrating on Covid, economic disruptions, and so on...... Wake me up when it is all over! BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 23:39:11 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 23:39:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 at 23:20, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > > Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w > _______________________________________________ I think it is much too early to be drawing conclusions. I worry about the long-term effects of almost everything that has happened. Long-term Covid infections, new Covid mutations, unexpected mRNA vaccine effects, population psychological effects, Government powers that won't be removed, all the undetected other illnesses developing while everyone was concentrating on Covid, economic disruptions, and so on...... Wake me up when it is all over! BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jan 22 23:56:30 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 15:56:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat ? We already know what will not happen: the US government has worn out their collective credibility by the most inept response imaginable. So you?re all gonna die, because the stupid and antisocial among you will be able to ignore whatever measures might possibly save you? -- Stathis Papaioannou No Stathis, we will cheerfully take whatever measures which might possibly save us. We will ignore what our government says however. Two very different things. This has been amply demonstrated. Note they are not necessarily oppose, just different. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 00:03:31 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 11:03:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:57, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > *?* > > We already know what will not happen: the US government has worn out their > collective credibility by the most inept response imaginable. > > So you?re all gonna die, because the stupid and antisocial among you will > be able to ignore whatever measures might possibly save you? > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > > > > > > > No Stathis, we will cheerfully take whatever measures which might possibly > save us. We will ignore what our government says however. Two very > different things. This has been amply demonstrated. Note they are not > necessarily oppose, just different. > But you?re all gonna die if it is required that at least a certain proportion of the population take the measures, and this proportion is larger than those who would do it voluntarily. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 00:21:05 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 16:21:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <017f01d80fef$1c931030$55b93090$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] enough time has passed... >?Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w OK. The government got behind development of the vaccine, removed its own red tape, offered blanket immunity to lawsuit to its developers. OK, done. That was accomplished by autumn 2020. That?s all they needed to do full stop. Then we had two POTUSes in a row recommend it, but in a way that caused harm: Americans generally don?t trust those two (well, imagine that (for our European friends, I am referring to Trump and Biden.)) But putting that aside, what we should have done is encourage a bit more openness and honesty, more glastnost. Tell the public we have developed this vaccine, it might work: it might cause immediate health problems (but probably not) it might have long term health impacts (currently unknown) it might prevent transmission (mostly did not) it might confer long-term immunity (it did not) it might make infection less serious and less likely to kill you (success on that one, yay for us.) We could have allowed companies to mandate the vaccines or any other measure if they wish, but would not offer those mandating companies indemnity should they require the vaccine which then harmed the employees, who could then sue them to the cufflinks. Allow doctors to prescribe off-label anything they believed would help or the patient requested, understanding that this is a best guess and doctors do what they can to help. Doctors are good people who went into the biz to help others. I trust them a heeeeellll of a lot more than I trust politicians. Good chance a pretty similar percentage of the proletariat would get the vaccines, possibly somewhat lower but note that in our current world, the countries which didn?t vaccinate are generally finished with covid, but the most intensively vaccinated countries still look like this: Conclusion: governments don?t know everything. Medical decisions should be made by medics, not politicians. Governments should support the medics in every way possible, and other than that, keep their own grubby paws out of it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 34708 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 00:36:57 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 16:36:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <018901d80ff1$541ad810$fc508830$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat No Stathis, we will cheerfully take whatever measures which might possibly save us. We will ignore what our government says however. Two very different things. This has been amply demonstrated. Note they are not necessarily oppose, just different. >?But you?re all gonna die if it is required that at least a certain proportion of the population take the measures, and this proportion is larger than those who would do it voluntarily. -- Stathis Papaioannou No Stathis, it really doesn?t work that way. Nothing we did stopped the virus. But the virus doesn?t kill everyone. We were told things like ??you?re all gonna die if you don?t?? this or that, but that kind of overblown rhetoric permanently damaged the credibility of those spouting such nonsense. Most of us knew someone who caught and recovered. I am one: I caught alpha very early in pandemic, and I do freely admit it kicked my ass bigtime. But after I came home from a hospital stay (still not knowing what that was) my bride and son both caught it, presumably from me. My bride experienced a moderate flu. For my son a very mild illness that caused one day off school and even that was a coin-toss. It was only after we all three recovered that we heard anything about this new covid disease out of China. As you recall, it was in about March 2020 that I and others posted that this looked like something that might have escaped from a research lab in China (I caught it from a medical worker who had just returned from China.) It was ridiculed as an absurd theory, which later turned out to be a likely explanation. This further damaged the credibility of those who did the ?fact checking? in the spring of 2020, such as Face Book and Twitter. Now our trust in those organizations is very low, and may take years to recover, if ever. This we can say: if we are told things like ??you?re all gonna die if you don?t do {x}? that is a quick way to turn the public against {x}. We didn?t trust that before and we trust that even less now. Summary: We were told to follow the science by the people who were following the science fiction. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 00:52:01 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 11:52:01 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <018901d80ff1$541ad810$fc508830$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> <018901d80ff1$541ad810$fc508830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 11:38, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > > No Stathis, we will cheerfully take whatever measures which might possibly > save us. We will ignore what our government says however. Two very > different things. This has been amply demonstrated. Note they are not > necessarily oppose, just different. > > >?But you?re all gonna die if it is required that at least a certain > proportion of the population take the measures, and this proportion is > larger than those who would do it voluntarily. > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > No Stathis, it really doesn?t work that way. Nothing we did stopped the > virus. But the virus doesn?t kill everyone. We were told things like > ??you?re all gonna die if you don?t?? this or that, but that kind of > overblown rhetoric permanently damaged the credibility of those spouting > such nonsense. Most of us knew someone who caught and recovered. I am > one: I caught alpha very early in pandemic, and I do freely admit it kicked > my ass bigtime. But after I came home from a hospital stay (still not > knowing what that was) my bride and son both caught it, presumably from > me. My bride experienced a moderate flu. For my son a very mild illness > that caused one day off school and even that was a coin-toss. It was only > after we all three recovered that we heard anything about this new covid > disease out of China. > > > > As you recall, it was in about March 2020 that I and others posted that > this looked like something that might have escaped from a research lab in > China (I caught it from a medical worker who had just returned from > China.) It was ridiculed as an absurd theory, which later turned out to be > a likely explanation. This further damaged the credibility of those who > did the ?fact checking? in the spring of 2020, such as Face Book and > Twitter. Now our trust in those organizations is very low, and may take > years to recover, if ever. > > > > This we can say: if we are told things like ??you?re all gonna die if you > don?t do {x}? that is a quick way to turn the public against {x}. We > didn?t trust that before and we trust that even less now. > > > > Summary: We were told to follow the science by the people who were > following the science fiction. > You?re avoiding the point. IF there is some measure which will save you if widely implemented enough, you won?t be able to implement it if a large enough proportion of the population won?t do it voluntarily. It?s a deficit in the system, if indeed that is your system. You seem to think it isn?t a problem, or indeed that it is a desirable feature. So all you can do is hope for the best. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 01:05:57 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 20:05:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 6:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what >> should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done >> (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w >> > > My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as mandated > mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save many > lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. > It would save a whole lot more lives to ban cigarettes and addictive foods full of sugar and massive amounts of sodium, fat, and carbs. Or alcohol. Or stopping pharmaceutical companies from selling opioids that caused the epidemic which is the #1 killer of young people in the USA. Or, idk, make everyone wear a helmet when they are driving. You act like you don't have your own personal line on autonomy vs. safety. We all do. It's a value judgment, and you're acting like it's objective. Why not do those other things? People pretend they give a shit about others, but they actually don't, otherwise they would have said something about any one of those issues earlier. Really, they are just full of fear for themselves, and they're pissed off that life was put on hold, and they need someone to blame it on. It NEVER had to do with helping others. It had to do with helping themselves, and blind obeisance to nebulous authority figures (again, fear: because when you grow up, you gain the fear that nobody knows what the fuck is going on, and you desperately want some authority to just tell you everything is going to be ok like your mothers used to.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From guessmyneeds at yahoo.com Sun Jan 23 01:31:32 2022 From: guessmyneeds at yahoo.com (Sherry Knepper) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 01:31:32 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ExI] Twos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <101420619.654136.1642901492545@mail.yahoo.com> Seems like it would be most effective to have it timestamped. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 7:10 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: I want to take a selfie of myself holding a clock?at 2 am, 22 minutes, 22 seconds, on February 22nd, the year 2222.? 2x12 FTW! -- 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 spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 01:47:22 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 17:47:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> <018901d80ff1$541ad810$fc508830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <01d801d80ffb$2aa0aa50$7fe1fef0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat ? >?But you?re all gonna die if it is required that at least a certain proportion of the population take the measures, and this proportion is larger than those who would do it voluntarily. -- Stathis Papaioannou ? Summary: We were told to follow the science by the people who were following the science fiction. >?You?re avoiding the point. IF there is some measure which will save you if widely implemented enough, you won?t be able to implement it if a large enough proportion of the population won?t do it voluntarily. It?s a deficit in the system, if indeed that is your system. You seem to think it isn?t a problem, or indeed that it is a desirable feature. So all you can do is hope for the best. -- Stathis Papaioannou Oh OK cool, I understand. No worries, I have a counter suggestion. Forget some kind of government system. Instead, gently compel people using those who have star power, such as rock stars who are generally appreciated by the masses (who?) movie actors, such as that. I have some suggestions, but before I get to that: ask all politicians to just keep quiet about it for now, all of them. They are polarizing figures, too likely to cause harm than good. So? get guys who are not being paid, who will do this as a public service. I recommend serious voices such as Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood, then add some clowny guy such as Dave Chapelle. Perhaps add in the actor who played the good guy doctor in ER, Anthony Edwards, in his Doctor Greene costume, or better yet that drop-dead gorgeous Laura Innes in her Dr. Kerry Weaver costume. I will do whatever she says. Get those people to talk to us heart to heart, with Chapelle throwing in funny wisecracks occasionally. Assemble that kind of team. Have them explain to the public what we know and what we don?t know. Be perfectly honest. Tell them there is a small risk of heart inflammation. Tell them we don?t know if immunity will last or how long. Tell them we don?t know if it will stop transmission. We don?t know if it will make you more susceptible to a later mutation (that one took everyone by surprise.) We don?t know if it might have long-term consequences, we don?t know if it will trigger auto-immune diseases, but we think the risk of that stuff is lower than the benefit: it reduces the severity and the risk you will die if you do catch. Have these guys (and Dr. Weaver) explain all this, don?t let politics into the discussion anywhere, be up front about the intentionally limited powers of government and that government cannot give itself new powers in response to a crisis unless it declares war (against who?) Keep all that out of the discussion. Bring in actual doctors to present data. Make it a fun show that people will view. Stathis, suppose that will work better than what we did? Me too. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 02:00:56 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:00:56 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 12:07, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 6:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what >>> should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done >>> (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w >>> >> >> My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as mandated >> mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save many >> lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. >> > > It would save a whole lot more lives to ban cigarettes and addictive foods > full of sugar and massive amounts of sodium, fat, and carbs. Or alcohol. > Or stopping pharmaceutical companies from selling opioids that caused the > epidemic which is the #1 killer of young people in the USA. Or, idk, make > everyone wear a helmet when they are driving. You act like you don't have > your own personal line on autonomy vs. safety. We all do. It's a value > judgment, and you're acting like it's objective. Why not do those other > things? People pretend they give a shit about others, but they actually > don't, otherwise they would have said something about any one of those > issues earlier. Really, they are just full of fear for themselves, and > they're pissed off that life was put on hold, and they need someone to > blame it on. It NEVER had to do with helping others. It had to do with > helping themselves, and blind obeisance to nebulous authority figures > (again, fear: because when you grow up, you gain the fear that nobody knows > what the fuck is going on, and you desperately want some authority to just > tell you everything is going to be ok like your mothers used to. > The difference is that with most of those other things you mention people are only directly harming themselves. Turning yourself into a virus factory is different. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 02:32:18 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 21:32:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 9:01 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 12:07, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 6:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what >>>> should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done >>>> (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w >>>> >>> >>> My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as mandated >>> mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save many >>> lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. >>> >> >> It would save a whole lot more lives to ban cigarettes and addictive >> foods full of sugar and massive amounts of sodium, fat, and carbs. Or >> alcohol. Or stopping pharmaceutical companies from selling opioids that >> caused the epidemic which is the #1 killer of young people in the USA. Or, >> idk, make everyone wear a helmet when they are driving. You act like you >> don't have your own personal line on autonomy vs. safety. We all do. It's >> a value judgment, and you're acting like it's objective. Why not do those >> other things? People pretend they give a shit about others, but they >> actually don't, otherwise they would have said something about any one of >> those issues earlier. Really, they are just full of fear for themselves, >> and they're pissed off that life was put on hold, and they need someone to >> blame it on. It NEVER had to do with helping others. It had to do with >> helping themselves, and blind obeisance to nebulous authority figures >> (again, fear: because when you grow up, you gain the fear that nobody knows >> what the fuck is going on, and you desperately want some authority to just >> tell you everything is going to be ok like your mothers used to. >> > > The difference is that with most of those other things you mention people > are only directly harming themselves. Turning yourself into a virus factory > is different. > Well I don't think it really makes a difference with respect to omicron, but that wasn't even the point I was making. The point is that the entire fuss of these people caring about others is false. They never held accountable the giant industries that caused much more death and suffering. I continue to posit that none of this is based on empathy, but just based on personal fear and desire to return to normalcy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 02:44:17 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:44:17 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 13:33, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 9:01 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 12:07, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 6:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what >>>>> should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done >>>>> (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w >>>>> >>>> >>>> My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as mandated >>>> mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save many >>>> lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. >>>> >>> >>> It would save a whole lot more lives to ban cigarettes and addictive >>> foods full of sugar and massive amounts of sodium, fat, and carbs. Or >>> alcohol. Or stopping pharmaceutical companies from selling opioids that >>> caused the epidemic which is the #1 killer of young people in the USA. Or, >>> idk, make everyone wear a helmet when they are driving. You act like you >>> don't have your own personal line on autonomy vs. safety. We all do. It's >>> a value judgment, and you're acting like it's objective. Why not do those >>> other things? People pretend they give a shit about others, but they >>> actually don't, otherwise they would have said something about any one of >>> those issues earlier. Really, they are just full of fear for themselves, >>> and they're pissed off that life was put on hold, and they need someone to >>> blame it on. It NEVER had to do with helping others. It had to do with >>> helping themselves, and blind obeisance to nebulous authority figures >>> (again, fear: because when you grow up, you gain the fear that nobody knows >>> what the fuck is going on, and you desperately want some authority to just >>> tell you everything is going to be ok like your mothers used to. >>> >> >> The difference is that with most of those other things you mention people >> are only directly harming themselves. Turning yourself into a virus factory >> is different. >> > > Well I don't think it really makes a difference with respect to omicron, > but that wasn't even the point I was making. The point is that the entire > fuss of these people caring about others is false. They never held > accountable the giant industries that caused much more death and > suffering. I continue to posit that none of this is based on empathy, but > just based on personal fear and desire to return to normalcy. > That's the whataboutism fallacy. And my original point, which I will repeat, was that EVEN IF it could be shown that mask and vaccine mandates could save lives, there are those who would not comply. That is, even if they agree in some future epidemic that wearing a mask might reduce the spread and save lives, they think their God-given (or wherever they believe it comes from) right to do as they please should not be overruled. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 02:59:08 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 21:59:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tesla autopilot In-Reply-To: <002b01d80fa9$314bcad0$93e36070$@rainier66.com> References: <35FDF04B-8009-4DB0-A736-757C33C90E48@gmail.com> <00b801d80f2f$a8ff68e0$fafe3aa0$@rainier66.com> <002b01d80fa9$314bcad0$93e36070$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 11:00 AM wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Saturday, January 22, 2022 1:13 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Cc:* Rafal Smigrodzki > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot > > > > > > > > On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 8:35 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Having a PE license makes me the world's foremost expert on what projects > I will personally work for. I wouldn't go anywhere near the place unless > there was some kind of blanket indemnity for that particular activity, > where courts or our legal system declared self-driving cars a kind of > special case where normal tort law doesn't apply. Should self-driving car > companies somehow be given blanket immunity, then stock buyers will come > and controls engineers will come. I don't expect the lawsuit industry or > the US legal system to offer such immunity. > > > > ### But why would you insist on immunity? If you are insured none of this > is your headache. > > > > It's probably impossible for courts to nullify tort law for FSD and why > would they, anyway? > > > > The only situation where the lawsuit industry could substantially affect > FSD cars would be if juries started awarding large punitive damages in > cases involving FSD. Otherwise, because of the assumed superior safety > record of FSD, the relevant insurance premiums would stay well below > liability premiums for regular driving. > > > > Rafal > > > > > > > > Rafal, we need some kind of large scale demonstration project before > insurance companies will bet on this technology. > ### Tesla is an insurance company and they have all the actuarial data they need. I predict that Tesla will at some point release a Level 4 version of FSD to the general public and offer liability insurance as part of the package. As I said, as long as juries don't pile on massive punitive damages this should be quite cheap and also a no-brainer for all FSD buyers. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 03:21:37 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:21:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Covid hysteria In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 5:42 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Spike wrote: > >> >> >> We already know what will not happen: the US government has worn out >> their collective credibility by the most inept response imaginable. >> > So you?re all gonna die, because the stupid and antisocial among you will > be able to ignore whatever measures might possibly save you? > ### The stupid and antisocial among us, like Dr Fauci and Ms Whitmer, damaged the social fabric with their stupid and destructive actions. The covid hysteria was similar to crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater daily for two years. There is an interesting question of liability - you can be held liable for the damages caused by a panic after a false alarm. Can you be also held liable for teaching people not to believe when an alarm is sounded and as a result have many people ignore a real emergency? There is certainly a condition of "alarm fatigue", for example when doctors see literally tens of thousands of false alarms when using EMR (electronic medical record) such as EPIC - so when a really important message shows up in the constant barrage of incoherent computer-generated idiocy some of us might ignore it out of habit. Who should be liable - the doctor who ignores the warning, or the program vendor, who makes it impossible to treat warnings seriously? Many people will not believe the boys and girls who cried wolf every day for two years, even if the wolf actually shows up. Yes, more innocent people will die because Fauci lied. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 03:23:41 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:23:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 6:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what >> should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done >> (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w >> > > My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as mandated > mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save many > lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. > ### You like fighting strawmen. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 03:29:40 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:29:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 7:05 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:57, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> No Stathis, we will cheerfully take whatever measures which might >> possibly save us. We will ignore what our government says however. Two >> very different things. This has been amply demonstrated. Note they are >> not necessarily oppose, just different. >> > But you?re all gonna die if it is required that at least a certain > proportion of the population take the measures, and this proportion is > larger than those who would do it voluntarily. > >> > ### Can you give us just one specific example of a public health measure, such that it must be taken by at least some specific fraction of the population, or else we all die? I have never heard of one so far, so I'd be very curious to know what it is that you are talking about. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 03:31:51 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:31:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <017f01d80fef$1c931030$55b93090$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <017f01d80fef$1c931030$55b93090$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 7:22 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Conclusion: governments don?t know everything. Medical decisions should > be made by medics, not politicians. Governments should support the medics > in every way possible, and other than that, keep their own grubby paws out > of it. > ### Yeah! Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 03:38:57 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:38:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 9:03 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > The difference is that with most of those other things you mention people > are only directly harming themselves. Turning yourself into a virus factory > is different. > >> -- ### An Omicron virus factory creates herd immunity at a very low cost to others. Knowingly infecting others without their knowledge with HIV in the 80s was something completely different. Can you see the difference? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 03:46:13 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 19:46:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <023b01d8100b$c4dc3480$4e949d80$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat That's the whataboutism fallacy. And my original point, which I will repeat, was that EVEN IF it could be shown that mask and vaccine mandates could save lives, there are those who would not comply. That is, even if they agree in some future epidemic that wearing a mask might reduce the spread and save lives, they think their God-given (or wherever they believe it comes from) right to do as they please should not be overruled. -- Stathis Papaioannou So if they have god-given rights, why keep going back to the notion that government can overrule that? Does the government outrank their god? This was a huge problem from the start in the USA: the government tried to give itself additional authority beyond the enumerated powers. They tried to do that without a constitutional amendment. The courts slapped them down. The government doesn?t get extra powers in a pandemic. It does get extra powers if it declares war. This it did not do. So? they must stop trying to invent powers, or discover workarounds such as using OSHA to grab new powers. Regarding people you mention who believe their god-given rights should not be overruled: their rights cannot legally be overruled. Stathis, it isn?t a should not, it is a cannot. There is no legal work-around other than a constitutional amendment. So? go to work on that. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 03:47:18 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:47:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 9:45 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 13:33, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 9:01 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 12:07, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 6:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what >>>>>> should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done >>>>>> (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as >>>>> mandated mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save >>>>> many lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. >>>>> >>>> >>>> It would save a whole lot more lives to ban cigarettes and addictive >>>> foods full of sugar and massive amounts of sodium, fat, and carbs. Or >>>> alcohol. Or stopping pharmaceutical companies from selling opioids that >>>> caused the epidemic which is the #1 killer of young people in the USA. Or, >>>> idk, make everyone wear a helmet when they are driving. You act like you >>>> don't have your own personal line on autonomy vs. safety. We all do. It's >>>> a value judgment, and you're acting like it's objective. Why not do those >>>> other things? People pretend they give a shit about others, but they >>>> actually don't, otherwise they would have said something about any one of >>>> those issues earlier. Really, they are just full of fear for themselves, >>>> and they're pissed off that life was put on hold, and they need someone to >>>> blame it on. It NEVER had to do with helping others. It had to do with >>>> helping themselves, and blind obeisance to nebulous authority figures >>>> (again, fear: because when you grow up, you gain the fear that nobody knows >>>> what the fuck is going on, and you desperately want some authority to just >>>> tell you everything is going to be ok like your mothers used to. >>>> >>> >>> The difference is that with most of those other things you mention >>> people are only directly harming themselves. Turning yourself into a virus >>> factory is different. >>> >> >> Well I don't think it really makes a difference with respect to omicron, >> but that wasn't even the point I was making. The point is that the entire >> fuss of these people caring about others is false. They never held >> accountable the giant industries that caused much more death and >> suffering. I continue to posit that none of this is based on empathy, but >> just based on personal fear and desire to return to normalcy. >> > > That's the whataboutism fallacy. And my original point, which I will > repeat, was that EVEN IF it could be shown that mask and vaccine mandates > could save lives, there are those who would not comply. > How do you know this? And like I said, it was never about saving lives. People are just doing it because they are scared for their OWN lives, and the people who didn't get the vax simply aren't scared of covid because they don't consider it to be a big deal for them. If it was scarier to them, most of them would get the medicine. Nobody is getting the shot to save people, because if they were the kind of people that did that, they would have already cared about all the worse things than covid. They were simply SCARED. Fear is not noble, it's just an emotional reaction that people have whether they like it or not. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 04:03:01 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 20:03:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <025001d8100e$1d9dd860$58d98920$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] enough time has passed... On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 9:03 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > wrote: The difference is that with most of those other things you mention people are only directly harming themselves. Turning yourself into a virus factory is different. -- ### An Omicron virus factory creates herd immunity at a very low cost to others. Knowingly infecting others without their knowledge with HIV in the 80s was something completely different. Can you see the difference? Rafal Ja. a lot of the US legal structure which is making the US government so ineffective in dealing with the current virus evolved in response to HIV forty years ago. At that time, a number of laws were established by legislatures or confirmed by courts to protect those with or at risk of HIV. That will be difficult or impossible to undo in response to covid. But? we don?t hafta mess with it. This epidemic is probably over. That Florida data is telling me this nightmare is over. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 04:22:34 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 15:22:34 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 14:31, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 6:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what >>> should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done >>> (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w >>> >> >> My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as mandated >> mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save many >> lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. >> > > ### You like fighting strawmen. > So what is your position: IF at some future point it could be shown to your satisfaction that masks and vaccinations would save lives, but only if enough people participated, would it be reasonable to mandate these measures if voluntary participation were insufficient? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 04:52:23 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 23:52:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some recent thoughts on minarchism Message-ID: By temperament I am quite attracted to anarcho-capitalism as the ideal form of governance but I recognize that for it to flourish some rather special conditions are necessary. Failing that, minarchism or the minimal state seems like a great idea. What is a "minimal state"? How to determine what should be the purview of the state and what must be left for other forms of organization to administer? Let me start out with efficiency. The minimal state is the one that is more efficient than alternatives that have either a smaller or larger scope of action. Perhaps I should call it the "optimal state" or "optimarchism", since I seek to optimize based on empirical and theoretical insights, rather than minimize as a matter of ideology but for the sake of continuity I will eschew neologisms. Efficiency here is the degree to which the goals of the individuals that comprise the society are fulfilled under the given circumstances. Generally, the state as a form of organization is inefficient in achieving goals of individuals, due to its long feedback loops, lack of experimentation, lack of a meaningful exit option and other issues, compared to e.g. markets. This creates a strong presumption in favor of limiting the scope of state action but empirically we also know that some pressing social problems have not been adequately addressed by markets or intra-family interactions, so a reasonable person may support the existence of a state to take care of those non-market-able issues. Traditionally minarchist theory was based on the non-aggression principle and led to the endorsement of state action in collective defense, courts and the police. I think this is a superficial approach, since it fails to tie in to the determinants of efficiency and also it is subject to mission-creep. A more appropriate justification for the state would not only seek to maximize efficiency but would also create a strong Schelling point around the extent of state action that would minimize political transaction costs and be stable. Whatever inefficiencies exist in state action, the state is actually reasonably good at one thing - keeping other states from arising or encroaching on the society. A state lives and dies by its ability to fight off other states, and as a result most modern states are evolved to keep other states at bay - or else they get gobbled up by their neighbors. It is useful to recognize this particular capability of the state and to use it as the basis for further thinking. Let me thus propose the following principle: *The proper scope of state action is only to survive*. Under this principle the state may take any and all actions it needs to stop other states or non-state actors from taking its territory, usurping its sovereignty and asserting state or state-like control over the society. Equally so, the state may not take any other action, regardless of whether such action might provide benefits to some or even all members of the society. This is a very peculiar way of looking at the state - it's self-referential, it creates a purpose for the state that does not aim to better the society, it only promises to keep other states off the society's back. It does not depend on any particular moral vision, does not create any task-specific duties or limitations (like the enumerated powers, or provisions for social services enshrined in constitutions around the world), it only makes one promise - keep other states out, no more, no less. And yet, despite (or maybe because) of its concise nature, it could create a strong Schelling point that would remain valid in a wide array of possible internal and external conditions and that Schelling point could be understood and acted upon by both the society at large and by the men of the state. In times of extreme strife the surviving state would legitimately claim extreme powers - draft, confiscation, wartime communism, even (in truly horrendous and unusual situations) censorship. This would be the totalitarian state, subsuming all of the society to the task of its own survival. But then, as the enemies slink away from the gates, the same principle of state survival would mandate a gradual limitation and dismantling of its control over the society, up to and including leaving just a skeleton crew manning the nuclear deterrent force, with life and property firmly in the hands of individuals and their non-state associations. This principle would be a beacon to provide a direction for all men, the same in times of war and in times of peace, which is a clear improvement over many current ideas that introduce a tension between individual freedom and collective security and fail to give us a common way of framing and understanding this very complex part of reality. I am not a scholar and I am not broadly familiar with the literature relevant to this field of political theory. In retrospect, the principle I enunciated is quite obvious, so I am sure many others had the same idea before me. If anyone here reading it knows of any previous proponents, tell me, so I can acknowledge them. Comments are welcome. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 05:38:55 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 00:38:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 11:22 PM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > So what is your position: IF at some future point it could be shown to > your satisfaction that masks and vaccinations would save lives, but only if > enough people participated, would it be reasonable to mandate these > measures if voluntary participation were insufficient? > >> > ### Let's posit the following situation: A new virus created in a PLA lab in China is accidentally released. It does not kill men but it kills all women (the PLA was trying to make a weapon to sterilize all non-Han people but somebody forgot to clean the air filter at the lab, so an intermediate viral construct leaked out). Women cannot be vaccinated because the virus is designed to circumvent the immune system in women and kills them rapidly no matter what. However, the virus becomes partially dormant in men, does not kill them but continues to be shed in exhaled air, so any infected man is a walking woman-killer. A vaccine can however clear the virus in men, rendering them again safe to be around women. In this world women can claim that men *must* be vaccinated, or else almost all women would die, or have to be confined to manless spaces with filtered air, which would be a major disruption to their way of life. Would I support a mandate for all men to be vaccinated, or else be banished to a place far away from women? Sure I would, and I would come to the vaccination station as soon as possible (just as I got the Covid vaccine, in January 2020). A vaccine mandate here would be an efficient way of protecting those who cannot efficiently protect themselves in other ways. This is the important part - those ingroup members who are *unable to protect their own lives*, through no fault of their own, may have a claim on other ingroup members to extend protection to them, at least in some circumstances. You notice how different this situation is from the covid hysteria, where the vaccine does not protect other people, everybody can be vaccinated, and everybody will be infected anyway, rendering them safer than the vaccinated ones, so no person can claim that other people *must* be vaccinated or else that person's life would be destroyed. Such details make all the difference. All of the above is just a verbose way of me saying that the mere claim, true or not, that vaccines save lives is not a sufficient justification for a mandate. And don't get me started on masks, these dehumanizing, humiliating pieces of medically useless trash. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 06:26:00 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:26:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <02c401d81022$175fdac0$461f9040$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat >?### Let's posit the following situation: >?A new virus created in a PLA lab in China is accidentally released. It does not kill men but it kills all women ? >?Would I support a mandate for all men to be vaccinated ? Rafal Thanks, fun example Rafal, but the sports world has already managed to mess up that scenario. We have a record-smashing swimmer woman now, but the virus doesn?t know she is a woman, so it infects her just as if she were a man. (Viruses are so retro that way.) She takes it into the locker room, since she is not required to take the vaccine, scratch the women?s swim team. We did this to ourselves. It may be impossible to undo this to ourselves. At some point we must acknowledge that we are trying to use the US legal system for something the US legal system cannot do. There is a way to change it, but I notice no one bothered to try, or even seriously suggest it. Governor?s mandates are not laws. The legislatures never made new laws, even in response to covid. A good example: some businesses in California require proof of vaccination to enter. However? it does not (and cannot in California) require photo ID. So one is not required to present one?s OWN proof of vaccination card, but rather one is required only to present A proof of vaccination card. We did this to ourselves. I believe there are better and more effective ways to deal with the crisis than our planet demonstrated in the past coupla years. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 07:02:06 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 18:02:06 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 16:40, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 11:22 PM Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > >> >> >> So what is your position: IF at some future point it could be shown to >> your satisfaction that masks and vaccinations would save lives, but only if >> enough people participated, would it be reasonable to mandate these >> measures if voluntary participation were insufficient? >> >>> >> > ### Let's posit the following situation: > > A new virus created in a PLA lab in China is accidentally released. It > does not kill men but it kills all women (the PLA was trying to make a > weapon to sterilize all non-Han people but somebody forgot to clean the air > filter at the lab, so an intermediate viral construct leaked out). Women > cannot be vaccinated because the virus is designed to circumvent the immune > system in women and kills them rapidly no matter what. However, the virus > becomes partially dormant in men, does not kill them but continues to be > shed in exhaled air, so any infected man is a walking woman-killer. A > vaccine can however clear the virus in men, rendering them again safe to be > around women. > > In this world women can claim that men *must* be vaccinated, or else > almost all women would die, or have to be confined to manless spaces with > filtered air, which would be a major disruption to their way of life. > > Would I support a mandate for all men to be vaccinated, or else be > banished to a place far away from women? Sure I would, and I would come to > the vaccination station as soon as possible (just as I got the Covid > vaccine, in January 2020). A vaccine mandate here would be an efficient way > of protecting those who cannot efficiently protect themselves in other > ways. This is the important part - those ingroup members who are *unable to > protect their own lives*, through no fault of their own, may have a claim > on other ingroup members to extend protection to them, at least in some > circumstances. > > You notice how different this situation is from the covid hysteria, where > the vaccine does not protect other people, everybody can be vaccinated, and > everybody will be infected anyway, rendering them safer than the vaccinated > ones, so no person can claim that other people *must* be vaccinated or else > that person's life would be destroyed. > > Such details make all the difference. > > All of the above is just a verbose way of me saying that the mere claim, > true or not, that vaccines save lives is not a sufficient justification for > a mandate. > > And don't get me started on masks, these dehumanizing, humiliating pieces > of medically useless trash. > OK, so your objection is a practical one, not a moral one. If masks were effective, say reducing R0 from 1.1 with voluntary use to 0.9 with mandated use and thereby potentially ending the epidemic, you would be OK with mandating them, right? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Sun Jan 23 07:13:39 2022 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2022 23:13:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <02c401d81022$175fdac0$461f9040$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <02c401d81022$175fdac0$461f9040$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On 1/22/22 10:26 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > A good example: some businesses in California require proof of > vaccination to enter.? However? it does not (and cannot in California) > require photo ID.? So one is not required to present one?s OWN proof of > vaccination card, but rather one is required only to present A proof of > vaccination card. You may want to revise your statement. Within California various different jurisdictions are passing their own rules and these are changing over time. For example in September in Contra Costa county which is not too far from you there was a rule which did require both picture ID and proof of vaccination in some venues. The relevant test is: "To show proof of vaccination, patrons must show photo ID and their vaccination record cards from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), or copies or pictures of their cards. Documentation from healthcare providers will also be accepted, as will digital COVID-19 vaccine records issued by the State of California." See: https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2021/0914-COVID-19-Proof-of-Vaccination-or-Test-Required.php Fred -- F. C. Moulton moulton at moulton.com From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 09:17:10 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 04:17:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 2:02 AM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> And don't get me started on masks, these dehumanizing, humiliating pieces >> of medically useless trash. >> > > OK, so your objection is a practical one, not a moral one. If masks were > effective, say reducing R0 from 1.1 with voluntary use to 0.9 with mandated > use and thereby potentially ending the epidemic, you would be OK with > mandating them, right? > ### Let's continue exploring the misogynistic virus counterfactual: Let's now posit that women can be vaccinated and fully protected from harm. Do men still have an obligation to be vaccinated? No, since everybody who needs protection can obtain protection at low cost to herself and there is no justification to impose on the lives of men. The changed premise of vaccination availability for women changes the calculus of what constitutes efficient action, and equitable apportionment of burdens among members of society, and therefore it changes the type of action that is justified. Let's now look at your example. Obviously, an intervention that reduces R0 below 1 in a population is only effective in ending an epidemic if there are no reservoirs of the pathogen capable of re-introducing it into the population (such reservoirs may be other human populations not affected by the intervention or they may be animals). If there are significant reservoirs, e.g when the infectious agent is endemic, such as Covid, the intervention that only slightly affects R0 will fail, and therefore is not justified under almost any circumstances. Full-blown epidemics usually end when the population dies out or reaches herd immunity by infection or vaccination, not through measures that only slow the spread of the disease. Sure, in a counterfactual world where mask wearing eliminates epidemics I would in certain situations endorse mask wearing despite their dehumanizing nature but in the real world masks provide absolutely no long-term benefit and should be vigorously opposed. It's easy to construct counterfactuals to justify just about anything (like my misogynistic virus world that justifies vaccine mandates) but so what? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 11:08:03 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 22:08:03 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 20:18, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 2:02 AM Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > >> >>> And don't get me started on masks, these dehumanizing, humiliating >>> pieces of medically useless trash. >>> >> >> OK, so your objection is a practical one, not a moral one. If masks were >> effective, say reducing R0 from 1.1 with voluntary use to 0.9 with mandated >> use and thereby potentially ending the epidemic, you would be OK with >> mandating them, right? >> > > ### Let's continue exploring the misogynistic virus counterfactual: Let's > now posit that women can be vaccinated and fully protected from harm. Do > men still have an obligation to be vaccinated? No, since everybody who > needs protection can obtain protection at low cost to herself and there is > no justification to impose on the lives of men. The changed premise of > vaccination availability for women changes the calculus of what constitutes > efficient action, and equitable apportionment of burdens among members of > society, and therefore it changes the type of action that is justified. > > Let's now look at your example. Obviously, an intervention that reduces R0 > below 1 in a population is only effective in ending an epidemic if there > are no reservoirs of the pathogen capable of re-introducing it into the > population (such reservoirs may be other human populations not affected by > the intervention or they may be animals). If there are significant > reservoirs, e.g when the infectious agent is endemic, such as Covid, the > intervention that only slightly affects R0 will fail, and therefore is not > justified under almost any circumstances. Full-blown epidemics usually end > when the population dies out or reaches herd immunity by infection or > vaccination, not through measures that only slow the spread of the disease. > > Sure, in a counterfactual world where mask wearing eliminates epidemics I > would in certain situations endorse mask wearing despite their dehumanizing > nature but in the real world masks provide absolutely no long-term benefit > and should be vigorously opposed. It's easy to construct counterfactuals to > justify just about anything (like my misogynistic virus world that > justifies vaccine mandates) but so what? > As long as you?re not a nasty man who doesn?t care if others die. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 14:51:22 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 08:51:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Will, I suggest reading or re-reading The Selfish Gene, in which Dawkins explains altruism. We do have it. You are apparently a cynic who doesn't care for others and are projecting your feelings to me, the group, and humanity entirely. I hope I am wrong and you are just feeling testy. bill w On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 7:08 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 6:35 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 10:19, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Well, tell us, oh great gurus: with the hindsight we have, just what >>> should have been done re the virus? What should not have been done >>> (omitting the obvious mandates)? bill w >>> >> >> My dispute is with those who say that EVEN IF measures such as mandated >> mask-wearing and vaccines would stop the pandemic or at least save many >> lives, they should not be implemented, because fuck other people. >> > > It would save a whole lot more lives to ban cigarettes and addictive foods > full of sugar and massive amounts of sodium, fat, and carbs. Or alcohol. > Or stopping pharmaceutical companies from selling opioids that caused the > epidemic which is the #1 killer of young people in the USA. Or, idk, make > everyone wear a helmet when they are driving. You act like you don't have > your own personal line on autonomy vs. safety. We all do. It's a value > judgment, and you're acting like it's objective. Why not do those other > things? People pretend they give a shit about others, but they actually > don't, otherwise they would have said something about any one of those > issues earlier. Really, they are just full of fear for themselves, and > they're pissed off that life was put on hold, and they need someone to > blame it on. It NEVER had to do with helping others. It had to do with > helping themselves, and blind obeisance to nebulous authority figures > (again, fear: because when you grow up, you gain the fear that nobody knows > what the fuck is going on, and you desperately want some authority to just > tell you everything is going to be ok like your mothers used to.) > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 23 15:01:08 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 09:01:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Some recent thoughts on minarchism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have no background in political theory, but I do know people somewhat. It starts with taxes: give an organization the ability to tax and then why not raise taxes? The people want services, are demanding services, and so the pols have the perfect excuse to raise taxes. Or better yet, borrow money, which doesn't require public approval (often at the local level I suppose people vote on bond issues). Bread and circuses - we all know this. So the idea of a minimalist government seems like a pipe dream. What we have now suggests a positive feedback cycle, eh? bill w On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 10:54 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > By temperament I am quite attracted to anarcho-capitalism as the ideal > form of governance but I recognize that for it to flourish some rather > special conditions are necessary. Failing that, minarchism or the minimal > state seems like a great idea. > > What is a "minimal state"? How to determine what should be the purview of > the state and what must be left for other forms of organization to > administer? > > Let me start out with efficiency. The minimal state is the one that is > more efficient than alternatives that have either a smaller or larger scope > of action. Perhaps I should call it the "optimal state" or "optimarchism", > since I seek to optimize based on empirical and theoretical insights, > rather than minimize as a matter of ideology but for the sake of continuity > I will eschew neologisms. Efficiency here is the degree to which the goals > of the individuals that comprise the society are fulfilled under the given > circumstances. > > Generally, the state as a form of organization is inefficient in achieving > goals of individuals, due to its long feedback loops, lack of > experimentation, lack of a meaningful exit option and other issues, > compared to e.g. markets. This creates a strong presumption in favor of > limiting the scope of state action but empirically we also know that some > pressing social problems have not been adequately addressed by markets or > intra-family interactions, so a reasonable person may support the existence > of a state to take care of those non-market-able issues. > > Traditionally minarchist theory was based on the non-aggression principle > and led to the endorsement of state action in collective defense, courts > and the police. I think this is a superficial approach, since it fails to > tie in to the determinants of efficiency and also it is subject to > mission-creep. A more appropriate justification for the state would not > only seek to maximize efficiency but would also create a strong Schelling > point around the extent of state action that would minimize political > transaction costs and be stable. > > Whatever inefficiencies exist in state action, the state is actually > reasonably good at one thing - keeping other states from arising or > encroaching on the society. A state lives and dies by its ability to fight > off other states, and as a result most modern states are evolved to keep > other states at bay - or else they get gobbled up by their neighbors. It is > useful to recognize this particular capability of the state and to use it > as the basis for further thinking. > > Let me thus propose the following principle: *The proper scope of state > action is only to survive*. > > Under this principle the state may take any and all actions it needs to > stop other states or non-state actors from taking its territory, usurping > its sovereignty and asserting state or state-like control over the society. > Equally so, the state may not take any other action, regardless of whether > such action might provide benefits to some or even all members of the > society. > > This is a very peculiar way of looking at the state - it's > self-referential, it creates a purpose for the state that does not aim to > better the society, it only promises to keep other states off the society's > back. It does not depend on any particular moral vision, does not create > any task-specific duties or limitations (like the enumerated powers, or > provisions for social services enshrined in constitutions around the > world), it only makes one promise - keep other states out, no more, no > less. And yet, despite (or maybe because) of its concise nature, it could > create a strong Schelling point that would remain valid in a wide array of > possible internal and external conditions and that Schelling point could be > understood and acted upon by both the society at large and by the men of > the state. > > In times of extreme strife the surviving state would legitimately claim > extreme powers - draft, confiscation, wartime communism, even (in truly > horrendous and unusual situations) censorship. This would be the > totalitarian state, subsuming all of the society to the task of its own > survival. But then, as the enemies slink away from the gates, the same > principle of state survival would mandate a gradual limitation and > dismantling of its control over the society, up to and including leaving > just a skeleton crew manning the nuclear deterrent force, with life and > property firmly in the hands of individuals and their non-state > associations. > > This principle would be a beacon to provide a direction for all men, the > same in times of war and in times of peace, which is a clear improvement > over many current ideas that introduce a tension between individual freedom > and collective security and fail to give us a common way of framing and > understanding this very complex part of reality. > > I am not a scholar and I am not broadly familiar with the literature > relevant to this field of political theory. In retrospect, the principle I > enunciated is quite obvious, so I am sure many others had the same idea > before me. If anyone here reading it knows of any previous proponents, tell > me, so I can acknowledge them. > > Comments are welcome. > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 15:19:58 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 07:19:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <02c401d81022$175fdac0$461f9040$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005601d8106c$af37ed20$0da7c760$@rainier66.com> ....> On Behalf Of F. C. Moulton via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] enough time has passed... On 1/22/22 10:26 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > >> ... So one is not required to present one?s OWN proof > of vaccination card, but rather one is required only to present A > proof of vaccination card. >...You may want to revise your statement. Within California various different jurisdictions are passing their own rules and these are changing over time. For example in September in Contra Costa county ... there was a rule which did require both picture ID and proof of vaccination in some venues. ... https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2021/0914-COVID-19-Proof-of-Vaccination-or-Test-Required.php Fred -- F. C. Moulton moulton at moulton.com _______________________________________________ Fred! Welcome back, me lad! Haven't heard from you in a long time, welcome. OK statement revised. I hadn't heard how they were doing things up in Contra Costa county, but I agree, counties make their own rules and businesses make their own rules. This is a puzzling situation for the top county health official is not elected (as far as I know (I don't even know who it is)) but is making decisions which have enormous impact. Stathis has been asking about mandates. Businesses have always had the freedom to have all the mandates, requirements and rules they want, hire a bouncer to enforce them upon anyone entering their store. They have the perfect right to do that: they own the place. The customer is free to choose what level of protection they want, including requiring that patrons wear two masks while eating: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=638227070439562 Businesses are free to hire as much enforcement as they wish to afford, but county law enforcement is spread thin already, so they can't help. Santa Clara county had a number of mandates and Alameda county up the street had them, but I never did see the sheriff's boys out enforcing anything. Sheriff Laurie has plenty of bigger headaches to worry about, now that she is in hot water over a pay-to-play corruption charge, minor stuff it sounds like, the usual stuff: selling concealed carry permits for campaign contributions. This notion of having businesses require (and enforce) vaccination and mask rules would work in general perhaps but it still takes us back to the really critical question of what to do with schools. Students are required to go there, but the risk/benefit equation is different for them. Covid doesn't do much to young people (thank holy evolution for that) and they have a loooong time ahead of them to suffer auto-immune disorders if there are any. So they have a lower benefit and higher risk than we old fellers have. On this latest bit: our local public school distributed at-home tests. The students use TikTok, so they know how to make the test read a false positive. We don't know what percentage of them did that for a free Ferris Beuller's week off (it's two weeks), along with a perfectly good excuse for failure, but you can be sure that the percentage is not zero. spike From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 15:58:57 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 10:58:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 9:52 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Will, I suggest reading or re-reading The Selfish Gene, in which Dawkins > explains altruism. We do have it. You are apparently a cynic who doesn't > care for others and are projecting your feelings to me, the group, and > humanity entirely. I hope I am wrong and you are just feeling testy. > bill w > Kin selection isn't really altruistic, for what it's worth. It's still governed by how close the others are genetically to the self. I do believe people want to be good but it is very easy to make them selfish using fear. That's what I think has happened here. I am an idealist but I am realistically idealistic, if that oxymoron makes any sense. I believe there are paths to get to really good places but that they are difficult paths. It's not easy to turn off this tribal fear conditioning. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 16:57:16 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 08:57:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat >?I believe there are paths to get to really good places but that they are difficult paths? Thanks for that, Will. >? It's not easy to turn off this tribal fear conditioning. Will Ja, it can be turned down under conditions of perfect safety. Remove all threats, we are better apes. The path to making a society more fair, open and accepting of others is not the soft-on-crime route, for that is self-defeating. Prosecutors being soft on crime increases crime, people feel threatened, the better angels of our nature are told to be gone, we become a more fearful and distrustful society, we elect politicians who promise to crack down on the scary bad guy. This concept is in perfect harmony with Steven Pinker?s notions, and with Dawkins. I consider both those lads very insightful. Watch what unfolds in the next three to five years. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 17:02:38 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 11:02:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Tribal fear conditioning: just what did you have in mind here? It is my belief that xenophobia is innate. Perhaps only the directions of the fears are determined by social conditioning. Is that what you meant? bill w On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 10:59 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > > *>?*I believe there are paths to get to really good places but that they > are difficult paths? > > > > Thanks for that, Will. > > > > >? It's not easy to turn off this tribal fear conditioning. Will > > > > Ja, it can be turned down under conditions of perfect safety. Remove all > threats, we are better apes. The path to making a society more fair, open > and accepting of others is not the soft-on-crime route, for that is > self-defeating. Prosecutors being soft on crime increases crime, people > feel threatened, the better angels of our nature are told to be gone, we > become a more fearful and distrustful society, we elect politicians who > promise to crack down on the scary bad guy. > > > > This concept is in perfect harmony with Steven Pinker?s notions, and with > Dawkins. I consider both those lads very insightful. > > > > Watch what unfolds in the next three to five years. > > > > 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 23 17:26:54 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 09:26:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Some recent thoughts on minarchism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No, as noted in the post, at some point people get voted in on the promise to lower taxes, which they sometimes fo out of self interest (to get voted in again). This sometimes involves reducing or eliminating certain services, particularly those that no longer serve a large number of people. So, no, taxes do not only go up. On Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 7:02 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I have no background in political theory, but I do know people somewhat. > It starts with taxes: give an organization the ability to tax and then why > not raise taxes? The people want services, are demanding services, and so > the pols have the perfect excuse to raise taxes. Or better yet, borrow > money, which doesn't require public approval (often at the local level I > suppose people vote on bond issues). Bread and circuses - we all know > this. So the idea of a minimalist government seems like a pipe dream. > What we have now suggests a positive feedback cycle, eh? bill w > > On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 10:54 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> By temperament I am quite attracted to anarcho-capitalism as the ideal >> form of governance but I recognize that for it to flourish some rather >> special conditions are necessary. Failing that, minarchism or the minimal >> state seems like a great idea. >> >> What is a "minimal state"? How to determine what should be the purview of >> the state and what must be left for other forms of organization to >> administer? >> >> Let me start out with efficiency. The minimal state is the one that is >> more efficient than alternatives that have either a smaller or larger scope >> of action. Perhaps I should call it the "optimal state" or "optimarchism", >> since I seek to optimize based on empirical and theoretical insights, >> rather than minimize as a matter of ideology but for the sake of continuity >> I will eschew neologisms. Efficiency here is the degree to which the goals >> of the individuals that comprise the society are fulfilled under the given >> circumstances. >> >> Generally, the state as a form of organization is inefficient in >> achieving goals of individuals, due to its long feedback loops, lack of >> experimentation, lack of a meaningful exit option and other issues, >> compared to e.g. markets. This creates a strong presumption in favor of >> limiting the scope of state action but empirically we also know that some >> pressing social problems have not been adequately addressed by markets or >> intra-family interactions, so a reasonable person may support the existence >> of a state to take care of those non-market-able issues. >> >> Traditionally minarchist theory was based on the non-aggression principle >> and led to the endorsement of state action in collective defense, courts >> and the police. I think this is a superficial approach, since it fails to >> tie in to the determinants of efficiency and also it is subject to >> mission-creep. A more appropriate justification for the state would not >> only seek to maximize efficiency but would also create a strong Schelling >> point around the extent of state action that would minimize political >> transaction costs and be stable. >> >> Whatever inefficiencies exist in state action, the state is actually >> reasonably good at one thing - keeping other states from arising or >> encroaching on the society. A state lives and dies by its ability to fight >> off other states, and as a result most modern states are evolved to keep >> other states at bay - or else they get gobbled up by their neighbors. It is >> useful to recognize this particular capability of the state and to use it >> as the basis for further thinking. >> >> Let me thus propose the following principle: *The proper scope of state >> action is only to survive*. >> >> Under this principle the state may take any and all actions it needs to >> stop other states or non-state actors from taking its territory, usurping >> its sovereignty and asserting state or state-like control over the society. >> Equally so, the state may not take any other action, regardless of whether >> such action might provide benefits to some or even all members of the >> society. >> >> This is a very peculiar way of looking at the state - it's >> self-referential, it creates a purpose for the state that does not aim to >> better the society, it only promises to keep other states off the society's >> back. It does not depend on any particular moral vision, does not create >> any task-specific duties or limitations (like the enumerated powers, or >> provisions for social services enshrined in constitutions around the >> world), it only makes one promise - keep other states out, no more, no >> less. And yet, despite (or maybe because) of its concise nature, it could >> create a strong Schelling point that would remain valid in a wide array of >> possible internal and external conditions and that Schelling point could be >> understood and acted upon by both the society at large and by the men of >> the state. >> >> In times of extreme strife the surviving state would legitimately claim >> extreme powers - draft, confiscation, wartime communism, even (in truly >> horrendous and unusual situations) censorship. This would be the >> totalitarian state, subsuming all of the society to the task of its own >> survival. But then, as the enemies slink away from the gates, the same >> principle of state survival would mandate a gradual limitation and >> dismantling of its control over the society, up to and including leaving >> just a skeleton crew manning the nuclear deterrent force, with life and >> property firmly in the hands of individuals and their non-state >> associations. >> >> This principle would be a beacon to provide a direction for all men, the >> same in times of war and in times of peace, which is a clear improvement >> over many current ideas that introduce a tension between individual freedom >> and collective security and fail to give us a common way of framing and >> understanding this very complex part of reality. >> >> I am not a scholar and I am not broadly familiar with the literature >> relevant to this field of political theory. In retrospect, the principle I >> enunciated is quite obvious, so I am sure many others had the same idea >> before me. If anyone here reading it knows of any previous proponents, tell >> me, so I can acknowledge them. >> >> Comments are welcome. >> >> 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 spike at rainier66.com Sun Jan 23 18:14:38 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 10:14:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] enough time has passed... >?Tribal fear conditioning: just what did you have in mind here? It is my belief that xenophobia is innate. Perhaps only the directions of the fears are determined by social conditioning. Is that what you meant? bill w Billw, ja you and I agree on this. You are right. It is clear to me that xenophobia is innate, but can be suppressed and controlled, just as we can learn to control negative emotions such as anger and fear. Xenophobia is a negative emotion that societal evolution has placed in human kind (and every other kind for that matter.) Over time, our lives have become safer (by a lot.) The notion of treating everyone as equals has a chance to grow into reality if we can maintain a safe society, where fear is low and trust is high. A society which is soft on crime results in more crime, which results in more fear and distrust, which results in reduced acceptance of those less similar which results in crackdowns on crime. This notion is in harmony with Pinker, Dawkins, Geoffrey Miller and to a large extent even Nicholas Christakis. Billw, I have very little cognitive dissonance on the topic of human nature. It is clear enough to me how we got to be the way we are, and where we are going from here. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 18:36:07 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 12:36:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The only problem I have with the 'tough on crime' attitude is that draconian measures are often used, such as the three and out. Three felonies of any kind means life in prison. Some third crimes are ridiculous in nature but judges hands are tied in most places. Drug crimes are the worst. Small amounts of something put people away for life and that's just wrong. Crimes against people, and to a much lesser extent, property, should be the focus - not victimless crimes. (please don't tell me that there aren't such - I am aware of the argument) This also costs billions of dollars to taxpayers, millions of whom are committing the little crimes that are putting people in jail for life. Does anyone know what is happening in Colorado? Now that pot is legal, what about the people in jail for simply possessing it? Should they be set free? Tough on crime can mean swatting flies with hammers. bill w On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 12:16 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] enough time has passed... > > > > >?Tribal fear conditioning: just what did you have in mind here? It is > my belief that xenophobia is innate. Perhaps only the directions of the > fears are determined by social conditioning. Is that what you meant? bill > w > > > > > > > > Billw, ja you and I agree on this. You are right. It is clear to me that > xenophobia is innate, but can be suppressed and controlled, just as we can > learn to control negative emotions such as anger and fear. Xenophobia is a > negative emotion that societal evolution has placed in human kind (and > every other kind for that matter.) > > > > Over time, our lives have become safer (by a lot.) The notion of treating > everyone as equals has a chance to grow into reality if we can maintain a > safe society, where fear is low and trust is high. > > > > A society which is soft on crime results in more crime, which results in > more fear and distrust, which results in reduced acceptance of those less > similar which results in crackdowns on crime. This notion is in harmony > with Pinker, Dawkins, Geoffrey Miller and to a large extent even Nicholas > Christakis. > > > > Billw, I have very little cognitive dissonance on the topic of human > nature. It is clear enough to me how we got to be the way we are, and > where we are going from here. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 18:47:34 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 12:47:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Some recent thoughts on minarchism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sure, taxes can go down. Our stupid legislature is trying to cut all income taxes, so that they can cut services even more than they are now. Every strategy they have used to get more businesses to come here has failed, yet they cannot declare their economic model false. sad In psychology we are so accustomed to not using 'never', 'always', 'not necessarily', and so on that we don't usually add a disclaimer to statements about people. bill w On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 11:29 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > No, as noted in the post, at some point people get voted in on the promise > to lower taxes, which they sometimes fo out of self interest (to get voted > in again). This sometimes involves reducing or eliminating certain > services, particularly those that no longer serve a large number of > people. So, no, taxes do not only go up. > > On Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 7:02 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I have no background in political theory, but I do know people somewhat. >> It starts with taxes: give an organization the ability to tax and then why >> not raise taxes? The people want services, are demanding services, and so >> the pols have the perfect excuse to raise taxes. Or better yet, borrow >> money, which doesn't require public approval (often at the local level I >> suppose people vote on bond issues). Bread and circuses - we all know >> this. So the idea of a minimalist government seems like a pipe dream. >> What we have now suggests a positive feedback cycle, eh? bill w >> >> On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 10:54 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> By temperament I am quite attracted to anarcho-capitalism as the ideal >>> form of governance but I recognize that for it to flourish some rather >>> special conditions are necessary. Failing that, minarchism or the minimal >>> state seems like a great idea. >>> >>> What is a "minimal state"? How to determine what should be the purview >>> of the state and what must be left for other forms of organization to >>> administer? >>> >>> Let me start out with efficiency. The minimal state is the one that is >>> more efficient than alternatives that have either a smaller or larger scope >>> of action. Perhaps I should call it the "optimal state" or "optimarchism", >>> since I seek to optimize based on empirical and theoretical insights, >>> rather than minimize as a matter of ideology but for the sake of continuity >>> I will eschew neologisms. Efficiency here is the degree to which the goals >>> of the individuals that comprise the society are fulfilled under the given >>> circumstances. >>> >>> Generally, the state as a form of organization is inefficient in >>> achieving goals of individuals, due to its long feedback loops, lack of >>> experimentation, lack of a meaningful exit option and other issues, >>> compared to e.g. markets. This creates a strong presumption in favor of >>> limiting the scope of state action but empirically we also know that some >>> pressing social problems have not been adequately addressed by markets or >>> intra-family interactions, so a reasonable person may support the existence >>> of a state to take care of those non-market-able issues. >>> >>> Traditionally minarchist theory was based on the non-aggression >>> principle and led to the endorsement of state action in collective defense, >>> courts and the police. I think this is a superficial approach, since it >>> fails to tie in to the determinants of efficiency and also it is subject to >>> mission-creep. A more appropriate justification for the state would not >>> only seek to maximize efficiency but would also create a strong Schelling >>> point around the extent of state action that would minimize political >>> transaction costs and be stable. >>> >>> Whatever inefficiencies exist in state action, the state is actually >>> reasonably good at one thing - keeping other states from arising or >>> encroaching on the society. A state lives and dies by its ability to fight >>> off other states, and as a result most modern states are evolved to keep >>> other states at bay - or else they get gobbled up by their neighbors. It is >>> useful to recognize this particular capability of the state and to use it >>> as the basis for further thinking. >>> >>> Let me thus propose the following principle: *The proper scope of state >>> action is only to survive*. >>> >>> Under this principle the state may take any and all actions it needs to >>> stop other states or non-state actors from taking its territory, usurping >>> its sovereignty and asserting state or state-like control over the society. >>> Equally so, the state may not take any other action, regardless of whether >>> such action might provide benefits to some or even all members of the >>> society. >>> >>> This is a very peculiar way of looking at the state - it's >>> self-referential, it creates a purpose for the state that does not aim to >>> better the society, it only promises to keep other states off the society's >>> back. It does not depend on any particular moral vision, does not create >>> any task-specific duties or limitations (like the enumerated powers, or >>> provisions for social services enshrined in constitutions around the >>> world), it only makes one promise - keep other states out, no more, no >>> less. And yet, despite (or maybe because) of its concise nature, it could >>> create a strong Schelling point that would remain valid in a wide array of >>> possible internal and external conditions and that Schelling point could be >>> understood and acted upon by both the society at large and by the men of >>> the state. >>> >>> In times of extreme strife the surviving state would legitimately claim >>> extreme powers - draft, confiscation, wartime communism, even (in truly >>> horrendous and unusual situations) censorship. This would be the >>> totalitarian state, subsuming all of the society to the task of its own >>> survival. But then, as the enemies slink away from the gates, the same >>> principle of state survival would mandate a gradual limitation and >>> dismantling of its control over the society, up to and including leaving >>> just a skeleton crew manning the nuclear deterrent force, with life and >>> property firmly in the hands of individuals and their non-state >>> associations. >>> >>> This principle would be a beacon to provide a direction for all men, the >>> same in times of war and in times of peace, which is a clear improvement >>> over many current ideas that introduce a tension between individual freedom >>> and collective security and fail to give us a common way of framing and >>> understanding this very complex part of reality. >>> >>> I am not a scholar and I am not broadly familiar with the literature >>> relevant to this field of political theory. In retrospect, the principle I >>> enunciated is quite obvious, so I am sure many others had the same idea >>> before me. If anyone here reading it knows of any previous proponents, tell >>> me, so I can acknowledge them. >>> >>> Comments are welcome. >>> >>> 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 >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 19:27:13 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 14:27:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 1:37 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The only problem I have with the 'tough on crime' attitude is that > draconian measures are often used, such as the three and out. > > Three felonies of any kind means life in prison. Some third crimes are > ridiculous in nature but judges hands are tied in most places. Drug crimes > are the worst. Small amounts of something put people away for life and > that's just wrong. Crimes against people, and to a much lesser extent, > property, should be the focus - not victimless crimes. (please don't tell > me that there aren't such - I am aware of the argument) > > This also costs billions of dollars to taxpayers, millions of whom are > committing the little crimes that are putting people in jail for life. > > Does anyone know what is happening in Colorado? Now that pot is legal, > what about the people in jail for simply possessing it? Should they be set > free? > > Tough on crime can mean swatting flies with hammers. bill w > > On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 12:16 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] enough time has passed... >> >> >> >> >?Tribal fear conditioning: just what did you have in mind here? It is >> my belief that xenophobia is innate. Perhaps only the directions of the >> fears are determined by social conditioning. Is that what you meant? bill >> w >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Billw, ja you and I agree on this. You are right. It is clear to me >> that xenophobia is innate, but can be suppressed and controlled, just as we >> can learn to control negative emotions such as anger and fear. Xenophobia >> is a negative emotion that societal evolution has placed in human kind (and >> every other kind for that matter.) >> >> >> >> Over time, our lives have become safer (by a lot.) The notion of >> treating everyone as equals has a chance to grow into reality if we can >> maintain a safe society, where fear is low and trust is high. >> >> >> >> A society which is soft on crime results in more crime, which results in >> more fear and distrust, which results in reduced acceptance of those less >> similar which results in crackdowns on crime. This notion is in harmony >> with Pinker, Dawkins, Geoffrey Miller and to a large extent even Nicholas >> Christakis. >> >> >> >> Billw, I have very little cognitive dissonance on the topic of human >> nature. It is clear enough to me how we got to be the way we are, and >> where we are going from here. >> >> >> >> 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 Yeah tough on crime isn't something I like in its current incarnation. I think jail is torture and that the government shouldn't be allowed to execute people. Mostly need to focus on education and reducing poverty. For crimes focus on rehabilitation not retribution. Bloodthirst solves nothing. Perhaps no jail, replace with some kind of financial outcast system. But castes have their own issues > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sun Jan 23 19:52:27 2022 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 14:52:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> References: <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <3A51B332-9529-4731-8B7F-11213568DC1C@alumni.virginia.edu> Deaths come 3-4 weeks following surges. Your celebration is premature I?m afraid. Even in Florida. I hope you prove right in due time though. -Henry > On Jan 22, 2022, at 2:47 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > ? > > > ? for me to conclude that this nightmare is over. > > The fatality numbers rose some in Florida?s omicron surge of December, but nothing like any of the three preceding waves. > > There is enough data and enough time now for us to conclude based on the Florida numbers that omicron doesn?t slay and that it is likely to confer some immunity from Alpha and Delta. > > If that still-tentative second contention is true, this two-year nightmare is over. > > 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: 31572 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 30060 bytes Desc: not available URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jan 23 21:18:23 2022 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:18:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse Message-ID: <20220123131823.Horde.frspal7DG6Xm15MH5CK9lMw@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> ----- Forwarded message from Stuart LaForge ----- Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:10:19 -0800 From: Stuart LaForge Subject: Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse To: Stuart LaForge ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Stuart LaForge Date: Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:00 PM Subject: Logical Proof of a Multiverse To: Claim: Our causal cell or Hubble volume does not contain the information storage capacity to compute the electron positions of a single gold (Au) atom. Proof: Let [image: S_i] represent the Shannon information capacity of our Hubble volume as calculated by generally accepted parameters for the Hubble volume applied to the formula for the Bekenstein bound as follows. The equation for the Bekenstein bound is [image: \mathbb{S}_i \leq \frac{2\pi c M R} {\hbar ln2}] The mass of the Hubble volume (including dark components) can be adequately represented by the product of the critical density [image: \rho_c] and the spherical Hubble volume [image: V_H] as follows where H is the Hubble parameter (constant). [image: \rho_c = \frac{3 {H}^2}{8 \pi G}] [image: V_H = \frac{4 \pi}{3} R_H^3] Here [image: R_H = \frac{c}{H}] is the Hubble Radius. [image: M_H = \rho_c V_H = \frac{c^3}{2 H G}] is the Hubble mass. Substituting the Hubble mass and the Hubble radius into the Bekenstein bound formula gives us the maximum total information content of our Hubble volume: [image: S_H \leq \frac{\pi c^5}{ln2 H^2 G \hbar} \approx 3.25 \times 10^{122} bits] Remember our Hubble volume is the set of all space-time that is subluminal and timelike relative to us; that is to say our causal cell is by one definition our causally bounded universe. Now let's try to compute the electron configuration of a gold atom. Gold (AU) has an atomic number 79 with 79 protons and 79 electrons. Now let us ignore the protons and simply try to compute the electron distribution across the atom. Since the gold atom has a radius of 144 picometers (pm) and a diameter of 288 pm then we could envisage a 3-dimensional approximation of a gold atom in a 288 x 288 x 288 cubic grid with a total of $288^3 = 23,887,872 voxels that any one or more of the 79 electrons could occupy at any one time according to the multiparticle time-dependent Schrodinger's equation. [image: \Psi(\vec{r}_1, \vec{r}_2,...\vec{r}_{79};t)] Since in order to determine a probability for each of the 79 electrons to be in each of the 23,887,872 voxels, we would have to integrate over three terms dx,dy, and dz for each of the 79 electrons to determine the probabilities of each of the [image: 288^{3 \times 79} = 23887872^{79} \approx 7.52 \times 10^{582}] possible states. Since each of the [image: 7.52 \times 10^{582}] states will have to be represented by a scalar probability value, and each such scalar value must exceed 1 bit of Shannon entropy, and [image: 7.52 \times 10^{582} >> 3.25 \times 10^{122}], the claim is proved. Q.E.D. So logically either the multiverse exists and is so mind bogglingly big as to be practically infinite OR the inner working of atoms is governed by a universal wave function that is running on a computer that is causally disconnected from and vastly larger than our observable universe. In either case, there is much more to reality than meets the eye. Stuart LaForge Virus-free. www.avast.com <#m_-6820246920155310988_m_1258230283594942653_m_8553758471747849954_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> ----- End forwarded message ----- -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Stuart LaForge Subject: Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:10:19 -0800 Size: 16968 URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 21:59:14 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 15:59:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Jail is bad enough, I think the Supreme Court needs to decide that solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment. Psychologically it just a terrible thing to do to a person. bill w On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:29 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 1:37 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> The only problem I have with the 'tough on crime' attitude is that >> draconian measures are often used, such as the three and out. >> >> Three felonies of any kind means life in prison. Some third crimes are >> ridiculous in nature but judges hands are tied in most places. Drug crimes >> are the worst. Small amounts of something put people away for life and >> that's just wrong. Crimes against people, and to a much lesser extent, >> property, should be the focus - not victimless crimes. (please don't tell >> me that there aren't such - I am aware of the argument) >> >> This also costs billions of dollars to taxpayers, millions of whom are >> committing the little crimes that are putting people in jail for life. >> >> Does anyone know what is happening in Colorado? Now that pot is legal, >> what about the people in jail for simply possessing it? Should they be set >> free? >> >> Tough on crime can mean swatting flies with hammers. bill w >> >> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 12:16 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] enough time has passed... >>> >>> >>> >>> >?Tribal fear conditioning: just what did you have in mind here? It >>> is my belief that xenophobia is innate. Perhaps only the directions of the >>> fears are determined by social conditioning. Is that what you meant? bill >>> w >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Billw, ja you and I agree on this. You are right. It is clear to me >>> that xenophobia is innate, but can be suppressed and controlled, just as we >>> can learn to control negative emotions such as anger and fear. Xenophobia >>> is a negative emotion that societal evolution has placed in human kind (and >>> every other kind for that matter.) >>> >>> >>> >>> Over time, our lives have become safer (by a lot.) The notion of >>> treating everyone as equals has a chance to grow into reality if we can >>> maintain a safe society, where fear is low and trust is high. >>> >>> >>> >>> A society which is soft on crime results in more crime, which results in >>> more fear and distrust, which results in reduced acceptance of those less >>> similar which results in crackdowns on crime. This notion is in harmony >>> with Pinker, Dawkins, Geoffrey Miller and to a large extent even Nicholas >>> Christakis. >>> >>> >>> >>> Billw, I have very little cognitive dissonance on the topic of human >>> nature. It is clear enough to me how we got to be the way we are, and >>> where we are going from here. >>> >>> >>> >>> 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 > > > Yeah tough on crime isn't something I like in its current incarnation. I > think jail is torture and that the government shouldn't be allowed to > execute people. > > Mostly need to focus on education and reducing poverty. For crimes focus > on rehabilitation not retribution. Bloodthirst solves nothing. > > Perhaps no jail, replace with some kind of financial outcast system. But > castes have their own issues > >> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 Sun Jan 23 23:20:31 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 10:20:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 24 Jan 2022 at 09:00, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Jail is bad enough, I think the Supreme Court needs to decide that > solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment. Psychologically it > just a terrible thing to do to a person. bill w > Killing them is also cruel, if not unusual. More cruel than solitary confinement or a botched execution attempt causing a sore arm where the injection leaked out. On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:29 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 1:37 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> The only problem I have with the 'tough on crime' attitude is that >>> draconian measures are often used, such as the three and out. >>> >>> Three felonies of any kind means life in prison. Some third crimes are >>> ridiculous in nature but judges hands are tied in most places. Drug crimes >>> are the worst. Small amounts of something put people away for life and >>> that's just wrong. Crimes against people, and to a much lesser extent, >>> property, should be the focus - not victimless crimes. (please don't tell >>> me that there aren't such - I am aware of the argument) >>> >>> This also costs billions of dollars to taxpayers, millions of whom are >>> committing the little crimes that are putting people in jail for life. >>> >>> Does anyone know what is happening in Colorado? Now that pot is legal, >>> what about the people in jail for simply possessing it? Should they be set >>> free? >>> >>> Tough on crime can mean swatting flies with hammers. bill w >>> >>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 12:16 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] enough time has passed... >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >?Tribal fear conditioning: just what did you have in mind here? It >>>> is my belief that xenophobia is innate. Perhaps only the directions of the >>>> fears are determined by social conditioning. Is that what you meant? bill >>>> w >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Billw, ja you and I agree on this. You are right. It is clear to me >>>> that xenophobia is innate, but can be suppressed and controlled, just as we >>>> can learn to control negative emotions such as anger and fear. Xenophobia >>>> is a negative emotion that societal evolution has placed in human kind (and >>>> every other kind for that matter.) >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Over time, our lives have become safer (by a lot.) The notion of >>>> treating everyone as equals has a chance to grow into reality if we can >>>> maintain a safe society, where fear is low and trust is high. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> A society which is soft on crime results in more crime, which results >>>> in more fear and distrust, which results in reduced acceptance of those >>>> less similar which results in crackdowns on crime. This notion is in >>>> harmony with Pinker, Dawkins, Geoffrey Miller and to a large extent even >>>> Nicholas Christakis. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Billw, I have very little cognitive dissonance on the topic of human >>>> nature. It is clear enough to me how we got to be the way we are, and >>>> where we are going from here. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> 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 >> >> >> Yeah tough on crime isn't something I like in its current incarnation. I >> think jail is torture and that the government shouldn't be allowed to >> execute people. >> >> Mostly need to focus on education and reducing poverty. For crimes focus >> on rehabilitation not retribution. Bloodthirst solves nothing. >> >> Perhaps no jail, replace with some kind of financial outcast system. But >> castes have their own issues >> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 00:40:43 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 18:40:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I don't think that dying of a drug or a gunshot is cruel. Gets it over quickly and that's a kindness. The electric chair is more along the lines of cruelty and even short torture. A sore arm is cruel? Really? I am mostly opposed to any of them, but if it had to be done, then a chamber of pure nitrogen is the kindest of all. bill w On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 5:23 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Mon, 24 Jan 2022 at 09:00, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Jail is bad enough, I think the Supreme Court needs to decide that >> solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment. Psychologically it >> just a terrible thing to do to a person. bill w >> > > Killing them is also cruel, if not unusual. More cruel than solitary > confinement or a botched execution attempt causing a sore arm where the > injection leaked out. > > On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:29 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 1:37 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> The only problem I have with the 'tough on crime' attitude is that >>>> draconian measures are often used, such as the three and out. >>>> >>>> Three felonies of any kind means life in prison. Some third crimes are >>>> ridiculous in nature but judges hands are tied in most places. Drug crimes >>>> are the worst. Small amounts of something put people away for life and >>>> that's just wrong. Crimes against people, and to a much lesser extent, >>>> property, should be the focus - not victimless crimes. (please don't tell >>>> me that there aren't such - I am aware of the argument) >>>> >>>> This also costs billions of dollars to taxpayers, millions of whom are >>>> committing the little crimes that are putting people in jail for life. >>>> >>>> Does anyone know what is happening in Colorado? Now that pot is legal, >>>> what about the people in jail for simply possessing it? Should they be set >>>> free? >>>> >>>> Tough on crime can mean swatting flies with hammers. bill w >>>> >>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 12:16 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] enough time has passed... >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >?Tribal fear conditioning: just what did you have in mind here? It >>>>> is my belief that xenophobia is innate. Perhaps only the directions of the >>>>> fears are determined by social conditioning. Is that what you meant? bill >>>>> w >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Billw, ja you and I agree on this. You are right. It is clear to me >>>>> that xenophobia is innate, but can be suppressed and controlled, just as we >>>>> can learn to control negative emotions such as anger and fear. Xenophobia >>>>> is a negative emotion that societal evolution has placed in human kind (and >>>>> every other kind for that matter.) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Over time, our lives have become safer (by a lot.) The notion of >>>>> treating everyone as equals has a chance to grow into reality if we can >>>>> maintain a safe society, where fear is low and trust is high. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> A society which is soft on crime results in more crime, which results >>>>> in more fear and distrust, which results in reduced acceptance of those >>>>> less similar which results in crackdowns on crime. This notion is in >>>>> harmony with Pinker, Dawkins, Geoffrey Miller and to a large extent even >>>>> Nicholas Christakis. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Billw, I have very little cognitive dissonance on the topic of human >>>>> nature. It is clear enough to me how we got to be the way we are, and >>>>> where we are going from here. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 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 >>> >>> >>> Yeah tough on crime isn't something I like in its current incarnation. >>> I think jail is torture and that the government shouldn't be allowed to >>> execute people. >>> >>> Mostly need to focus on education and reducing poverty. For crimes focus >>> on rehabilitation not retribution. Bloodthirst solves nothing. >>> >>> Perhaps no jail, replace with some kind of financial outcast system. >>> But castes have their own issues >>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 03:07:34 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 14:07:34 +1100 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 24 Jan 2022 at 11:42, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I don't think that dying of a drug or a gunshot is cruel. Gets it over > quickly and that's a kindness. The electric chair is more along the lines > of cruelty and even short torture. > > A sore arm is cruel? Really? > > I am mostly opposed to any of them, but if it had to be done, then a > chamber of pure nitrogen is the kindest of all. bill w > The cruelty of the execution method pales in comparison with the cruelty of locking someone up and telling them that they will be killed. That?s why murder, even if quick and painless, is generally considered the worst crime. On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 5:23 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Mon, 24 Jan 2022 at 09:00, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Jail is bad enough, I think the Supreme Court needs to decide that >>> solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment. Psychologically it >>> just a terrible thing to do to a person. bill w >>> >> >> Killing them is also cruel, if not unusual. More cruel than solitary >> confinement or a botched execution attempt causing a sore arm where the >> injection leaked out. >> >> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:29 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022, 1:37 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> The only problem I have with the 'tough on crime' attitude is that >>>>> draconian measures are often used, such as the three and out. >>>>> >>>>> Three felonies of any kind means life in prison. Some third crimes >>>>> are ridiculous in nature but judges hands are tied in most places. Drug >>>>> crimes are the worst. Small amounts of something put people away for life >>>>> and that's just wrong. Crimes against people, and to a much lesser extent, >>>>> property, should be the focus - not victimless crimes. (please don't tell >>>>> me that there aren't such - I am aware of the argument) >>>>> >>>>> This also costs billions of dollars to taxpayers, millions of whom are >>>>> committing the little crimes that are putting people in jail for life. >>>>> >>>>> Does anyone know what is happening in Colorado? Now that pot is >>>>> legal, what about the people in jail for simply possessing it? Should they >>>>> be set free? >>>>> >>>>> Tough on crime can mean swatting flies with hammers. bill w >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 12:16 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] enough time has passed... >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >?Tribal fear conditioning: just what did you have in mind here? >>>>>> It is my belief that xenophobia is innate. Perhaps only the directions of >>>>>> the fears are determined by social conditioning. Is that what you meant? >>>>>> bill w >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Billw, ja you and I agree on this. You are right. It is clear to me >>>>>> that xenophobia is innate, but can be suppressed and controlled, just as we >>>>>> can learn to control negative emotions such as anger and fear. Xenophobia >>>>>> is a negative emotion that societal evolution has placed in human kind (and >>>>>> every other kind for that matter.) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Over time, our lives have become safer (by a lot.) The notion of >>>>>> treating everyone as equals has a chance to grow into reality if we can >>>>>> maintain a safe society, where fear is low and trust is high. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> A society which is soft on crime results in more crime, which results >>>>>> in more fear and distrust, which results in reduced acceptance of those >>>>>> less similar which results in crackdowns on crime. This notion is in >>>>>> harmony with Pinker, Dawkins, Geoffrey Miller and to a large extent even >>>>>> Nicholas Christakis. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Billw, I have very little cognitive dissonance on the topic of human >>>>>> nature. It is clear enough to me how we got to be the way we are, and >>>>>> where we are going from here. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> 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 >>>> >>>> >>>> Yeah tough on crime isn't something I like in its current incarnation. >>>> I think jail is torture and that the government shouldn't be allowed to >>>> execute people. >>>> >>>> Mostly need to focus on education and reducing poverty. For crimes >>>> focus on rehabilitation not retribution. Bloodthirst solves nothing. >>>> >>>> Perhaps no jail, replace with some kind of financial outcast system. >>>> But castes have their own issues >>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 03:33:20 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 19:33:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse In-Reply-To: <20220123131823.Horde.frspal7DG6Xm15MH5CK9lMw@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20220123131823.Horde.frspal7DG6Xm15MH5CK9lMw@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: Error: proving that "our causal cell or Hubble volume does not contain the information storage capacity to compute the electron positions of a single gold (Au) atom" does not directly prove that "either the multiverse exists and is so mind bogglingly big as to be practically infinite OR the inner working of atoms is governed by a universal wave function that is running on a computer that is causally disconnected from and vastly larger than our observable universe". On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:20 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > ----- Forwarded message from Stuart LaForge > ----- > Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:10:19 -0800 > From: Stuart LaForge > Subject: Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse > To: Stuart LaForge > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Stuart LaForge > Date: Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:00 PM > Subject: Logical Proof of a Multiverse > To: > > > Claim: Our causal cell or Hubble volume does not contain the information > storage capacity to compute the electron positions of a single gold (Au) > atom. > > Proof: Let [image: S_i] represent the Shannon information capacity of our > Hubble volume as calculated by generally accepted parameters for the Hubble > volume applied to the formula for the Bekenstein bound as follows. > > The equation for the Bekenstein bound is > > [image: \mathbb{S}_i \leq \frac{2\pi c M R} {\hbar ln2}] > > The mass of the Hubble volume (including dark components) can be adequately > represented by the product of the critical density [image: \rho_c] and the > spherical Hubble volume [image: V_H] as follows where H is the Hubble > parameter (constant). > > [image: \rho_c = \frac{3 {H}^2}{8 \pi G}] > > [image: V_H = \frac{4 \pi}{3} R_H^3] > > Here [image: R_H = \frac{c}{H}] is the Hubble Radius. [image: M_H = \rho_c > V_H = \frac{c^3}{2 H G}] is the Hubble mass. > > Substituting the Hubble mass and the Hubble radius into the Bekenstein > bound formula gives us the maximum total information content of our Hubble > volume: > > [image: S_H \leq \frac{\pi c^5}{ln2 H^2 G \hbar} \approx 3.25 \times > 10^{122} bits] > > Remember our Hubble volume is the set of all space-time that is subluminal > and timelike relative to us; that is to say our causal cell is by one > definition our causally bounded universe. > > Now let's try to compute the electron configuration of a gold atom. Gold > (AU) has an atomic number 79 with 79 protons and 79 electrons. Now let us > ignore the protons and simply try to compute the electron distribution > across the atom. Since the gold atom has a radius of 144 picometers (pm) > and a diameter of 288 pm then we could envisage a 3-dimensional > approximation of a gold atom in a 288 x 288 x 288 cubic grid with a total > of $288^3 = 23,887,872 voxels that any one or more of the 79 electrons > could occupy at any one time according to the multiparticle time-dependent > Schrodinger's equation. > > [image: \Psi(\vec{r}_1, \vec{r}_2,...\vec{r}_{79};t)] > > Since in order to determine a probability for each of the 79 electrons to > be in each of the 23,887,872 voxels, we would have to integrate over three > terms dx,dy, and dz for each of the 79 electrons to determine the > probabilities of each of the [image: 288^{3 \times 79} = 23887872^{79} > \approx 7.52 \times 10^{582}] possible states. > > Since each of the [image: 7.52 \times 10^{582}] states will have to be > represented by a scalar probability value, and each such scalar value must > exceed 1 bit of Shannon entropy, and [image: 7.52 \times 10^{582} >> 3.25 > \times 10^{122}], the claim is proved. > > Q.E.D. > > So logically either the multiverse exists and is so mind bogglingly big as > to be practically infinite OR the inner working of atoms is governed by a > universal wave function that is running on a computer that is causally > disconnected from and vastly larger than our observable universe. In either > case, there is much more to reality than meets the eye. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > < > https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon > > > Virus-free. > www.avast.com > < > https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link > > > > <#m_-6820246920155310988_m_1258230283594942653_m_8553758471747849954_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> > > ----- End forwarded message ----- > > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Stuart LaForge > To: Stuart LaForge > Cc: > Bcc: > Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:10:19 -0800 > Subject: Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Stuart LaForge > Date: Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:00 PM > Subject: Logical Proof of a Multiverse > To: > > > Claim: Our causal cell or Hubble volume does not contain the information > storage capacity to compute the electron positions of a single gold (Au) > atom. > > Proof: Let [image: S_i] represent the Shannon information capacity of our > Hubble volume as calculated by generally accepted parameters for the Hubble > volume applied to the formula for the Bekenstein bound as follows. > > The equation for the Bekenstein bound is > > [image: \mathbb{S}_i \leq \frac{2\pi c M R} {\hbar ln2}] > > The mass of the Hubble volume (including dark components) can be > adequately represented by the product of the critical density [image: > \rho_c] and the spherical Hubble volume [image: V_H] as follows where H > is the Hubble parameter (constant). > > [image: \rho_c = \frac{3 {H}^2}{8 \pi G}] > > [image: V_H = \frac{4 \pi}{3} R_H^3] > > Here [image: R_H = \frac{c}{H}] is the Hubble Radius. [image: M_H = > \rho_c V_H = \frac{c^3}{2 H G}] is the Hubble mass. > > Substituting the Hubble mass and the Hubble radius into the Bekenstein > bound formula gives us the maximum total information content of our Hubble > volume: > > [image: S_H \leq \frac{\pi c^5}{ln2 H^2 G \hbar} \approx 3.25 \times > 10^{122} bits] > > Remember our Hubble volume is the set of all space-time that is subluminal > and timelike relative to us; that is to say our causal cell is by one > definition our causally bounded universe. > > Now let's try to compute the electron configuration of a gold atom. Gold > (AU) has an atomic number 79 with 79 protons and 79 electrons. Now let us > ignore the protons and simply try to compute the electron distribution > across the atom. Since the gold atom has a radius of 144 picometers (pm) > and a diameter of 288 pm then we could envisage a 3-dimensional > approximation of a gold atom in a 288 x 288 x 288 cubic grid with a total > of $288^3 = 23,887,872 voxels that any one or more of the 79 electrons > could occupy at any one time according to the multiparticle time-dependent > Schrodinger's equation. > > [image: \Psi(\vec{r}_1, \vec{r}_2,...\vec{r}_{79};t)] > > Since in order to determine a probability for each of the 79 electrons to > be in each of the 23,887,872 voxels, we would have to integrate over three > terms dx,dy, and dz for each of the 79 electrons to determine the > probabilities of each of the [image: 288^{3 \times 79} = 23887872^{79} > \approx 7.52 \times 10^{582}] possible states. > > Since each of the [image: 7.52 \times 10^{582}] states will have to be > represented by a scalar probability value, and each such scalar value must > exceed 1 bit of Shannon entropy, and [image: 7.52 \times 10^{582} >> 3.25 > \times 10^{122}], the claim is proved. > > Q.E.D. > > So logically either the multiverse exists and is so mind bogglingly big as > to be practically infinite OR the inner working of atoms is governed by a > universal wave function that is running on a computer that is causally > disconnected from and vastly larger than our observable universe. In either > case, there is much more to reality than meets the eye. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Virus-free. > www.avast.com > > <#m_-7638228790157520931_m_-6820246920155310988_m_1258230283594942653_m_8553758471747849954_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 24 03:52:01 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 19:52:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse In-Reply-To: References: <20220123131823.Horde.frspal7DG6Xm15MH5CK9lMw@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <006701d810d5$befbef90$3cf3ceb0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse >?Error: proving that "our causal cell or Hubble volume does not contain the information storage capacity to compute the electron positions of a single gold (Au) atom" does not directly prove that "either the multiverse exists and is so mind bogglingly big as to be practically infinite OR the inner working of atoms is governed by a universal wave function that is running on a computer that is causally disconnected from and vastly larger than our observable universe". Long ago I came to accept the reality of our situation. Our perceived universe, our consciousness, everything we see, hear and feel, everything we know, is all part of a grand finite element model. I am particularly fortunate, for I was one of those who was there when finite element modelling was becoming fashionable in the engineering world, resulting in my having insights into reality that my less-fortunate counterparts in other disciplines did not have. The element dimension is the cubic Planck length and the time step is the chronon. Adrian et.al, I am most pleased to be quantum entangled with all of you. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 05:53:44 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 00:53:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse In-Reply-To: <006701d810d5$befbef90$3cf3ceb0$@rainier66.com> References: <20220123131823.Horde.frspal7DG6Xm15MH5CK9lMw@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> <006701d810d5$befbef90$3cf3ceb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 10:53 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > The element dimension is the cubic Planck length and the time step is the > chronon. > > > ### Stephen Wolfram says the element dimension is something like 200 orders of magnitude smaller than the Planck length, or something cellular automaton something I don't understand, magic-physics but pretty cool: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-may-have-a-path-to-the-fundamental-theory-of-physics-and-its-beautiful/ Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 06:09:38 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2022 22:09:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse In-Reply-To: References: <20220123131823.Horde.frspal7DG6Xm15MH5CK9lMw@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> <006701d810d5$befbef90$3cf3ceb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <000a01d810e8$f892d8a0$e9b889e0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2022 9:54 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: Re: [ExI] Fwd: Logical Proof of a Multiverse On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 10:53 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: The element dimension is the cubic Planck length and the time step is the chronon. ### Stephen Wolfram says the element dimension is something like 200 orders of magnitude smaller than the Planck length, or something cellular automaton something I don't understand, magic-physics but pretty cool: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-may-have-a-path-to-the-fundamental-theory-of-physics-and-its-beautiful/ Rafal Meh, Wolfram Schmolfram, what does he know from shinola? Thanks for the link Rafal. Wolfram himself showed up briefly at one of the ExtroCons, the one at Berkeley. I think it was ExtroCon 4. He was only there for half an hour, talking with Max. I was in awe of myself, just for being in the presence of those guys. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 12:10:40 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 07:10:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 7:43 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > I am mostly opposed to any of them, but if it had to be done, then a > chamber of pure nitrogen is the kindest of all. > You think suffocation would be kind? I'd think a fentanyl OD would be pretty painless. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 13:45:08 2022 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 08:45:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> <018901d80ff1$541ad810$fc508830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:53 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 11:38, spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *?*> *On Behalf Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat >> >> No Stathis, we will cheerfully take whatever measures which might >> possibly save us. We will ignore what our government says however. Two >> very different things. This has been amply demonstrated. Note they are >> not necessarily oppose, just different. >> >> >?But you?re all gonna die if it is required that at least a certain >> proportion of the population take the measures, and this proportion is >> larger than those who would do it voluntarily. >> >> -- >> >> Stathis Papaioannou >> >> >> >> >> >> No Stathis, it really doesn?t work that way. Nothing we did stopped the >> virus. But the virus doesn?t kill everyone. We were told things like >> ??you?re all gonna die if you don?t?? this or that, but that kind of >> overblown rhetoric permanently damaged the credibility of those spouting >> such nonsense. Most of us knew someone who caught and recovered. I am >> one: I caught alpha very early in pandemic, and I do freely admit it kicked >> my ass bigtime. But after I came home from a hospital stay (still not >> knowing what that was) my bride and son both caught it, presumably from >> me. My bride experienced a moderate flu. For my son a very mild illness >> that caused one day off school and even that was a coin-toss. It was only >> after we all three recovered that we heard anything about this new covid >> disease out of China. >> >> >> >> As you recall, it was in about March 2020 that I and others posted that >> this looked like something that might have escaped from a research lab in >> China (I caught it from a medical worker who had just returned from >> China.) It was ridiculed as an absurd theory, which later turned out to be >> a likely explanation. This further damaged the credibility of those who >> did the ?fact checking? in the spring of 2020, such as Face Book and >> Twitter. Now our trust in those organizations is very low, and may take >> years to recover, if ever. >> >> >> >> This we can say: if we are told things like ??you?re all gonna die if you >> don?t do {x}? that is a quick way to turn the public against {x}. We >> didn?t trust that before and we trust that even less now. >> >> >> >> Summary: We were told to follow the science by the people who were >> following the science fiction. >> > You?re avoiding the point. IF there is some measure which will save you if > widely implemented enough, you won?t be able to implement it if a large > enough proportion of the population won?t do it voluntarily. It?s a deficit > in the system, if indeed that is your system. You seem to think it isn?t a > problem, or indeed that it is a desirable feature. So all you can do is > hope for the best. > Conversely, if this widely implemented measure X gave everyone cancer in five years it would be good if it were not adopted by 100% of the population. I think some degree of robustness is afforded by populations not all doing X at any one time. It can be a deficit in some circumstances and a strength in others, but we can't always know upfront which it is. Consider that when you turn on the lights, half the cockroaches scatter and hide and the other half remain in the open to continue eating. The ones that scatter risk starvation while those that remain out risk getting squashed. Either strategy can be good or bad for the individual, but the species as a whole benefits by distributing different response strategies across members of the population. It's a hallmark of evolution and necessary for a species's survival. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 14:57:24 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 06:57:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> <018901d80ff1$541ad810$fc508830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004501d81132$b2ca0290$185e07b0$@rainier66.com> ?.> On Behalf Of Jason Resch via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] enough time has passed... On Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 7:53 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > wrote: ? You seem to think it isn?t a problem, or indeed that it is a desirable feature. So all you can do is hope for the best. Freedom isn?t free. It comes with a price, up to and sometimes including, our lives. It is a bargain. The good news is that one can move from a place which has freedom to a place which does not easily. Coming back the other way, not so much. But ja, we can always hope for the best, and I do. >?Conversely, if this widely implemented measure X gave everyone cancer in five years it would be good if it were not adopted by 100% of the population. I think some degree of robustness is afforded by populations not all doing X at any one time. >?It can be a deficit in some circumstances and a strength in others, but we can't always know upfront which it is. >?Consider that when you turn on the lights, half the cockroaches scatter and hide and the other half remain in the open to continue eating. The ones that scatter risk starvation while those that remain out risk getting squashed. Either strategy can be good or bad for the individual, but the species as a whole benefits by distributing different response strategies across members of the population. It's a hallmark of evolution and necessary for a species' survival?.Jason Dang Jason, you have some bold roaches. My roaches will scamper in unanimity, even if not all in the same direction. But you are right on with this post, which is why I didn?t trim any of it. Governments don?t know everything the The Science doesn?t know everything. He?s changed his mind a number of times, issued contradictory statements, been caught lying to congress about funding gain-of-function research in China, you name it. The Science isn?t all-knowing and the government certainly is not. There are good reasons to not compel everyone do the same thing. We can ignore the fact that it isn?t legal in the USA and go on to it isn?t even a good idea. We still don?t know if these vaccines may trigger auto-immune conditions years down the road and may not know that for some time to come. We don?t know if it will make people more susceptible to other flu strains and may not know that even this flu season because we still doing countermeasures such as social distancing for many people, but? we are seeing early indications that these vaccines might be making people more susceptible to omicron. Apparently omicron doesn?t kill, but that is an example of a consequence The Science didn?t anticipate. Some of us should be the bold cockroaches. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 15:06:52 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 10:06:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> <018901d80ff1$541ad810$fc508830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 8:46 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Conversely, if this widely implemented measure X gave everyone cancer in > five years it would be good if it were not adopted by 100% of the > population. I think some degree of robustness is afforded by populations > not all doing X at any one time. > > It can be a deficit in some circumstances and a strength in others, but we > can't always know upfront which it is. > > Consider that when you turn on the lights, half the cockroaches scatter > and hide and the other half remain in the open to continue eating. The ones > that scatter risk starvation while those that remain out risk getting > squashed. Either strategy can be good or bad for the individual, but the > species as a whole benefits by distributing different response strategies > across members of the population. It's a hallmark of evolution and > necessary for a species's survival. > Thanks for putting this concisely, this is essentially what I've been telling people; I say something like "SOMEBODY has to not take it!" but I like the way you put it better. But yeah I've been saying that it doesn't make sense for 100% of people to immediately take a medical intervention that the government or society tells them to. Things need balance, harmony. If we lived in a society where 100% of people blindly listen to authority, that would not be good. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 15:16:10 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 07:16:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <014801d80feb$ad9a4750$08ced5f0$@rainier66.com> <018901d80ff1$541ad810$fc508830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006601d81135$51fd18f0$f5f74ad0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] enough time has passed... On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 8:46 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat > wrote: Conversely, if this widely implemented measure X gave everyone cancer in five years it would be good if it were not adopted by 100% of the population. I think some degree of robustness is afforded by populations not all doing X at any one time. It can be a deficit in some circumstances and a strength in others, but we can't always know upfront which it is. Consider that when you turn on the lights, half the cockroaches scatter and hide and the other half remain in the open to continue eating. The ones that scatter risk starvation while those that remain out risk getting squashed. Either strategy can be good or bad for the individual, but the species as a whole benefits by distributing different response strategies across members of the population. It's a hallmark of evolution and necessary for a species's survival. >?Thanks for putting this concisely, this is essentially what I've been telling people; I say something like "SOMEBODY has to not take it!" but I like the way you put it better. But yeah I've been saying that it doesn't make sense for 100% of people to immediately take a medical intervention that the government or society tells them to. Things need balance, harmony. If we lived in a society where 100% of people blindly listen to authority, that would not be good. Will Me too, and it was something that needs to be said. Jason you are a quiet one mostly. Why not post more? Whaddya we gotta do, start a chant? Well, OK then. JaaaSON? JaaaSON? JaaaSON? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 15:39:51 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 09:39:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Dave, according to what I read the criminal does not suffer at all. No suffocation. His body doesn't miss the oxygen and he feels normal until he just doesn't have enough oxygen to maintain consciousness. Painless - no suffering. From I have read. bill w On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 6:13 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 7:43 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> I am mostly opposed to any of them, but if it had to be done, then a >> chamber of pure nitrogen is the kindest of all. >> > > You think suffocation would be kind? I'd think a fentanyl OD would be > pretty painless. > > -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 pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 15:45:10 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 15:45:10 +0000 Subject: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics Message-ID: Infinite sums are among the most underrated yet powerful concepts in mathematics, capable of linking concepts across math?s vast web. By Steven StrogatzJanuary 24, 2022 Quote: The most compelling reason for learning about infinite series (or so I tell my students) is that they?re stunning connectors. They reveal ties between different areas of mathematics, unexpected links between everything that came before. It?s only when you get to this part of calculus that the true structure of math ? all of math ? finally starts to emerge. --------------- Fascinating story! Recommended! BillK From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 15:56:15 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 07:56:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008601d8113a$eb702400$c2506c00$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics Infinite sums are among the most underrated yet powerful concepts in mathematics, capable of linking concepts across math?s vast web. By Steven StrogatzJanuary 24, 2022 Quote: The most compelling reason for learning about infinite series (or so I tell my students) is that they?re stunning connectors. They reveal ties between different areas of mathematics, unexpected links between everything that came before. It?s only when you get to this part of calculus that the true structure of math ? all of math ? finally starts to emerge. --------------- Fascinating story! Recommended! BillK _______________________________________________ Great article BillK thanks! I have long been a big fan of infinite series. If one gets really hot with those techniques, insights come to that one. Enlightenment and understanding come to those who get infinite series. Cool magazine, thanks for that too. spike From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 16:02:06 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 08:02:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008901d8113b$bd0c9250$3725b6f0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics Infinite sums are among the most underrated yet powerful concepts in mathematics, capable of linking concepts across math?s vast web. By Steven StrogatzJanuary 24, 2022 ... --------------- Fascinating story! Recommended! BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, this is a most insightful comment: Infinite series ? the sum of infinitely many numbers, variables or functions that follow a certain rule ? are bit players in the great drama of calculus. While derivatives and integrals rightly steal the show, infinite series modestly stand off to the side. When they do make an appearance it?s near the end of the course, as everyone?s dragging themselves across the finish line... Steven Strogate Oh how true is this. A grueling year of calculus is coming to a close and by the time they really get to this, we are tired. We saw that it is wicked cool and astonishing, but were just tired by then, so much like seeing the most stunning scenery of the whole trip on the way home. spike From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 16:30:42 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 11:30:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: This seems to ignore the psychological suffering of knowing you are being executed. On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 10:40 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Dave, according to what I read the criminal does not suffer at all. No > suffocation. His body doesn't miss the oxygen and he feels normal until he > just doesn't have enough oxygen to maintain consciousness. Painless - no > suffering. From I have read. bill w > > On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 6:13 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 7:43 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> I am mostly opposed to any of them, but if it had to be done, then a >>> chamber of pure nitrogen is the kindest of all. >>> >> >> You think suffocation would be kind? I'd think a fentanyl OD would be >> pretty painless. >> >> -Dave >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 16:42:26 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 10:42:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Well, if you are going to kill somebody then the anticipation is part of it regardless of which method you use. Hell, they are supposed to suffer some, aren't they? I do think that no one should have to be on execution row for years and years. bill w On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 10:33 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > This seems to ignore the psychological suffering of knowing you are being > executed. > > On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 10:40 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Dave, according to what I read the criminal does not suffer at all. No >> suffocation. His body doesn't miss the oxygen and he feels normal until he >> just doesn't have enough oxygen to maintain consciousness. Painless - no >> suffering. From I have read. bill w >> >> On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 6:13 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 7:43 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> I am mostly opposed to any of them, but if it had to be done, then a >>>> chamber of pure nitrogen is the kindest of all. >>>> >>> >>> You think suffocation would be kind? I'd think a fentanyl OD would be >>> pretty painless. >>> >>> -Dave >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 Mon Jan 24 16:42:39 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 16:42:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: <008901d8113b$bd0c9250$3725b6f0$@rainier66.com> References: <008901d8113b$bd0c9250$3725b6f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 24 Jan 2022 at 16:04, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > BillK, this is a most insightful comment: > > Infinite series ? the sum of infinitely many numbers, variables or functions that follow a certain rule ? are bit players in the great drama of calculus. While derivatives and integrals rightly steal the show, infinite series modestly stand off to the side. When they do make an appearance it?s near the end of the course, as everyone?s dragging themselves across the finish line... Steven Strogate > > > > Oh how true is this. A grueling year of calculus is coming to a close and by the time they really get to this, we are tired. We saw that it is wicked cool and astonishing, but were just tired by then, so much like seeing the most stunning scenery of the whole trip on the way home. > > spike > _______________________________________________ Yes, I thought your son might like this article, to see how it all fits together. BillK From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 16:47:55 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 11:47:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Why is the state executing people in the first place? It's insane On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 11:43 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Well, if you are going to kill somebody then the anticipation is part of > it regardless of which method you use. Hell, they are supposed to suffer > some, aren't they? I do think that no one should have to be on execution > row for years and years. bill w > > On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 10:33 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> This seems to ignore the psychological suffering of knowing you are being >> executed. >> >> On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 10:40 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Dave, according to what I read the criminal does not suffer at all. No >>> suffocation. His body doesn't miss the oxygen and he feels normal until he >>> just doesn't have enough oxygen to maintain consciousness. Painless - no >>> suffering. From I have read. bill w >>> >>> On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 6:13 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 7:43 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> I am mostly opposed to any of them, but if it had to be done, then a >>>>> chamber of pure nitrogen is the kindest of all. >>>>> >>>> >>>> You think suffocation would be kind? I'd think a fentanyl OD would be >>>> pretty painless. >>>> >>>> -Dave >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Mon Jan 24 16:48:19 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 08:48:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics Message-ID: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: spike at rainier66.com Sent: Monday, January 24, 2022 7:56 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Cc: spike at rainier66.com Subject: RE: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics Infinite sums are among the most underrated yet powerful concepts in mathematics, capable of linking concepts across math?s vast web. By Steven StrogatzJanuary 24, 2022 Quote: The most compelling reason for learning about infinite series (or so I tell my students) is that they?re stunning connectors. They reveal ties between different areas of mathematics, unexpected links between everything that came before. It?s only when you get to this part of calculus that the true structure of math ? all of math ? finally starts to emerge. --------------- Fascinating story! Recommended! BillK _______________________________________________ >...Great article BillK thanks! >From BillK's Strogatz article: >...which tells us a = 35 ? 20 = 12 miles. Similar reasoning reveals that the legs shrink by a ratio of r= 15 each time the fly turns around. Von Neumann saw all of this instantly and, using the a/(1?r) formula above, he found the total distance traveled by the fly: >...S = 121?15 = 1245 = 604 = 15 miles... It is entirely plausible that Von Neumann really did use the infinite series approach to solve the fly problem. Engineers will nearly always see the shortcut but mathematicians know the hell outta their infinite series formulas and tend to think in those terms. My son and I had a similar experience with the fly problem: he solved in about a minute using the a/(1?r) formula. I got it in about 10 seconds using engineering insight. Speaking of which... a new puzzle (of sorts) occurred to me this morning as my teenage mathematician bounded down the stairs baDOOMP ba DOOMP baDOOMP and the thought came to mind: I don't bound down the stairs like that. So... why don't I bound down the stairs like that? Because it hurts my knees to bound down like that. So... why does it hurt my knees but not his, and why didn't it hurt mine thirty years ago? If I damaged my knees with running, well... that was over with thirty years ago. I stopped running daily about in my early 30s, but now I am paying the price for that youthful indiscretion. But thirty years ago, after I stopped running, I would still bound down the stairs without pain. For the last 30 years, I have taken good care of my knees, but still they remind me early and often of the decades of youthful indiscretion, of the common paradigm of the day: no pain no gain. OK, we can arrange pain. In retrospect it should have been no brain no gain, but we didn't know. We thought it had to hurt to do any good. So... we made it hurt. Now we don't want it to hurt anymore, and even if it does, it appears to be a no gain anyway. So... why do old knees hurt but young knees do not? What physiological change took place? spike From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 17:04:38 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 12:04:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 10:42 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Dave, according to what I read the criminal does not suffer at all. No > suffocation. His body doesn't miss the oxygen and he feels normal until he > just doesn't have enough oxygen to maintain consciousness. Painless - no > suffering. From I have read. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation covers this pretty well. Apparently the traumatic feeling of suffocation comes not from lack of oxygen in the blood, but from too much carbon dioxide. So that's a promising execution/suicide method, but it's never been tried for execution. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 17:13:22 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 12:13:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 11:44 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Well, if you are going to kill somebody then the anticipation is part of > it regardless of which method you use. Hell, they are supposed to suffer > some, aren't they? > No, it's not supposed to cause suffering. And you're incorrectly assuming that nobody is ever erroneously sentenced to death. I do think that no one should have to be on execution row for years and > years. > I think it goes pretty quickly if the defense doesn't file lots of appeals. I think the death penalty is a bad idea, though. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 17:13:49 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 11:13:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> References: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The Xrays on my bad knee showed that it was bone on bone - no whatever kind of tissue was there is not there anymore. Maybe osteoarthritis kills it slowly. Overuse does too: consider football linemen: tremendous pressure every play on the knees and hips, and ergo many hip and knee replacements in that group. Spike - it's just age, old buddy. You can try glucosamine/chondroitin and it probably won't help. Avoid injections if at all possible: there is a very limited number of them you can have, and to boot, they damage tissue too, as does any steroid. You want to save the injection until the pain just begs you to do something. And when the injections have to stop it's time to consider replacement. Getting older is dealing with pain, no way around it. You could also try some anti-inflammatories, such as Naproxen, curcurmin, aspirin, and so on. bill w On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 11:01 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: spike at rainier66.com > Sent: Monday, January 24, 2022 7:56 AM > To: 'ExI chat list' > Cc: spike at rainier66.com > Subject: RE: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > BillK via extropy-chat > Subject: [ExI] How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics > > Infinite sums are among the most underrated yet powerful concepts in > mathematics, capable of linking concepts across math?s vast web. > By Steven StrogatzJanuary 24, 2022 > > < > https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-infinite-series-reveal-the-unity-of-mathematics-20220124/ > > > > Quote: > The most compelling reason for learning about infinite series (or so I > tell my students) is that they?re stunning connectors. They reveal ties > between different areas of mathematics, unexpected links between everything > that came before. It?s only when you get to this part of calculus that the > true structure of math ? all of math ? finally starts to emerge. > --------------- > > Fascinating story! Recommended! > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > > >...Great article BillK thanks! > > > From BillK's Strogatz article: > > >...which tells us a = 35 ? 20 = 12 miles. Similar reasoning reveals that > the legs shrink by a ratio of r= 15 each time the fly turns around. Von > Neumann saw all of this instantly and, using the a/(1?r) formula above, he > found the total distance traveled by the fly: > > >...S = 121?15 = 1245 = 604 = 15 miles... > > It is entirely plausible that Von Neumann really did use the infinite > series approach to solve the fly problem. Engineers will nearly always see > the shortcut but mathematicians know the hell outta their infinite series > formulas and tend to think in those terms. My son and I had a similar > experience with the fly problem: he solved in about a minute using the > a/(1?r) formula. I got it in about 10 seconds using engineering insight. > > Speaking of which... a new puzzle (of sorts) occurred to me this morning > as my teenage mathematician bounded down the stairs baDOOMP ba DOOMP > baDOOMP and the thought came to mind: I don't bound down the stairs like > that. So... why don't I bound down the stairs like that? Because it hurts > my knees to bound down like that. So... why does it hurt my knees but not > his, and why didn't it hurt mine thirty years ago? If I damaged my knees > with running, well... that was over with thirty years ago. I stopped > running daily about in my early 30s, but now I am paying the price for that > youthful indiscretion. But thirty years ago, after I stopped running, I > would still bound down the stairs without pain. > > For the last 30 years, I have taken good care of my knees, but still they > remind me early and often of the decades of youthful indiscretion, of the > common paradigm of the day: no pain no gain. OK, we can arrange pain. In > retrospect it should have been no brain no gain, but we didn't know. We > thought it had to hurt to do any good. So... we made it hurt. Now we > don't want it to hurt anymore, and even if it does, it appears to be a no > gain anyway. > > So... why do old knees hurt but young knees do not? What physiological > change took place? > > 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 Mon Jan 24 17:32:51 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 11:32:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Why on Earth would you think that I don't understand false positives? In fact, they are the reason I don't support the death penalty at all. If there were some egregious case, such as raping and killing a child, I would kill them in some way if the evidence was just about certain. DNA for sure. bill w On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 11:15 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 11:44 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Well, if you are going to kill somebody then the anticipation is part of >> it regardless of which method you use. Hell, they are supposed to suffer >> some, aren't they? >> > > No, it's not supposed to cause suffering. And you're incorrectly assuming > that nobody is ever erroneously sentenced to death. > > I do think that no one should have to be on execution row for years and >> years. >> > > I think it goes pretty quickly if the defense doesn't file lots of appeals. > > I think the death penalty is a bad idea, though. > > -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 msd001 at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 18:23:29 2022 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:23:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 12:07 PM Dave S via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Apparently the traumatic feeling of suffocation comes not from lack of > oxygen in the blood, but from too much carbon dioxide. > > So that's a promising execution/suicide method, but it's never been tried > for execution. > Has there been any precedent for cryopreservation of convicted and death-sentenced persons? In that case, I imagine the method of execution impacting possible brain damage would certainly be a concern. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 18:57:46 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:57:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 12:35 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Why on Earth would you think that I don't understand false positives? > I misread what you wrote. > In fact, they are the reason I don't support the death penalty at all. > If there were some egregious case, such as raping and killing a child, I > would kill them in some way if the evidence was just about certain. > You don't support the death penalty at all. Unless the crime is egregious and guilt is almost certain. So you do support the death penalty. DNA for sure. > DNA evidence isn't as foolproof as you might think. E.g., identical twins, planted evidence, etc. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 20:24:43 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 12:24:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: References: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009b01d81160$6d036020$470a2060$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics >?The Xrays on my bad knee showed that it was bone on bone - no whatever kind of tissue was there is not there anymore. Maybe osteoarthritis kills it slowly. Overuse does too: consider football linemen: tremendous pressure every play on the knees and hips, and ergo many hip and knee replacements in that group. Spike - it's just age, old buddy. You can try glucosamine/chondroitin and it probably won't help. Avoid injections if at all possible: there is a very limited number of them you can have, and to boot, they damage tissue too, as does any steroid. You want to save the injection until the pain just begs you to do something. And when the injections have to stop it's time to consider replacement. Getting older is dealing with pain, no way around it. You could also try some anti-inflammatories, such as Naproxen, curcurmin, aspirin, and so on. bill w Ja, OK but what was wondering is what physiological changes occurred over time such that teenage knees come bounding down the stairs but mine don?t? I think you said it: arthritis somehow reduces its volume which somehow causes pain signals upon impact. Regarding the comment: Spike-it?s just age, old buddy? I prefer to think of myself as middle-aged buddy, which assumes of course that I live past 120, or perhaps even late-youth buddy, but either way, a fun thought occurred to me today: you asked about modern pop music and I had one, but wasn?t sure if it qualifies. Read on please. Back in the waaaay olden days, we had American Top 40 on the AM radio, and it was even better for those who could afford FM in their cars, and that station would have oldies day, where they specified the term referred to the music, not the audience. The songs were mostly from the 50s, a few from the early 60s which at that time was only 20 years old. Their definition of oldies in music was 20 years. Sheesh. Well OK then, plenty of us who were teens noticed the ?oldies? were generally better music than the? newies. It was cool stuff, Elvis and Everlys and Roy Orbison and so forth. There was is a hip mod group but by now it would oldies: the Cranberries. They were mostly 1990s I think, great sound, female lead vocalist outstanding, but the lyrics, oh mercy. Sheesh try cheerfulness Delores, oy vey. Billw there it is: Cranberries, so with that I can almost declare myself a mod hipster. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 20:24:52 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 14:24:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Saying that I support the death penalty totally misrepresents my position. Since there are no laws restricting the death penalty to egregious cases, then I do not support it at all in present circumstances. bill w On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 1:00 PM Dave S via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 12:35 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Why on Earth would you think that I don't understand false positives? >> > > I misread what you wrote. > > >> In fact, they are the reason I don't support the death penalty at all. >> If there were some egregious case, such as raping and killing a child, I >> would kill them in some way if the evidence was just about certain. >> > > You don't support the death penalty at all. Unless the crime is egregious > and guilt is almost certain. So you do support the death penalty. > > DNA for sure. >> > > DNA evidence isn't as foolproof as you might think. E.g., identical twins, > planted evidence, 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 Mon Jan 24 20:36:03 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 14:36:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: <009b01d81160$6d036020$470a2060$@rainier66.com> References: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> <009b01d81160$6d036020$470a2060$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: 'It's just age old buddy' - didn't say old age. Physically we start down hill as soon as we mature - sad thought for the day, eh? Your knees usually begin to deteriorate because of: Your age: The most common types of arthritis to cause knee deterioration and pain in aged knees include *osteoarthritis* (worn out cartilage), rheumatoid arthritis (autoimmune disease), gout (acid buildup in joints) and septic arthritis (infected knee joint). So you probably have the beginnings of osteoarthritis In the 50s there was a TV show that played the pop hits of the week. The guy was Snooky Landsen. I saw him trying to sing an Elvis song, I think it was Heartbreak Hotel, and it was the strangest thing I have ever seen in music. Dorkishness, nerdism, does not begin to describe what he did to that song. The show went off the air shortly after that. bill w On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 2:27 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal > the Unity of Mathematics > > > > >?The Xrays on my bad knee showed that it was bone on bone - no whatever > kind of tissue was there is not there anymore. Maybe osteoarthritis kills > it slowly. Overuse does too: consider football linemen: tremendous > pressure every play on the knees and hips, and ergo many hip and knee > replacements in that group. Spike - it's just age, old buddy. You can try > glucosamine/chondroitin and it probably won't help. Avoid injections if at > all possible: there is a very limited number of them you can have, and to > boot, they damage tissue too, as does any steroid. You want to save the > injection until the pain just begs you to do something. And when the > injections have to stop it's time to consider replacement. Getting older > is dealing with pain, no way around it. You could also try some > anti-inflammatories, such as Naproxen, curcurmin, aspirin, and so on. bill > w > > > > > > Ja, OK but what was wondering is what physiological changes occurred over > time such that teenage knees come bounding down the stairs but mine don?t? > I think you said it: arthritis somehow reduces its volume which somehow > causes pain signals upon impact. > > > > Regarding the comment: Spike-it?s just age, old buddy? I prefer to think > of myself as middle-aged buddy, which assumes of course that I live past > 120, or perhaps even late-youth buddy, but either way, a fun thought > occurred to me today: you asked about modern pop music and I had one, but > wasn?t sure if it qualifies. Read on please. > > > > Back in the waaaay olden days, we had American Top 40 on the AM radio, and > it was even better for those who could afford FM in their cars, and that > station would have oldies day, where they specified the term referred to > the music, not the audience. The songs were mostly from the 50s, a few > from the early 60s which at that time was only 20 years old. Their > definition of oldies in music was 20 years. Sheesh. Well OK then, plenty > of us who were teens noticed the ?oldies? were generally better music than > the? newies. It was cool stuff, Elvis and Everlys and Roy Orbison and so > forth. > > > > There was is a hip mod group but by now it would oldies: the Cranberries. > They were mostly 1990s I think, great sound, female lead vocalist > outstanding, but the lyrics, oh mercy. Sheesh try cheerfulness Delores, oy > vey. > > > > Billw there it is: Cranberries, so with that I can almost declare myself a > mod hipster. > > > > 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 rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 21:20:11 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 16:20:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Rafal's knee nostrum was Re: knees and math In-Reply-To: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> References: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 12:01 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > So... why do old knees hurt but young knees do not? What physiological > change took place? > > ### Mitochondrial damage accumulates over time, decreasing energy-generating capacity, shifting energy generation towards glycolysis, decreasing reserves needed for maintenance of tissue integrity (in cartilage it's proteoglycan turnover). Cartilage that is not maintained becomes brittle, inflammatory response is mounted against the degenerating tissue matrix and chondrocytes die off, the whole mess irritates surrounding tissues that have innervation and pain signals are generated. Cartilage and other non-vascular joint tissues (ligaments, articular capsule, tendons) are peculiar in that their function is dependent on mechanically stimulated interstitial fluid circulation. In vascular tissues all you need is normal blood supply and the needed oxygen and metabolite movements are achieved through diffusion from and to microvasculature. In cartilage you need fluctuating mechanical strain to cause a pumping action on the interstitial fluid, with the tissue acting like a sponge that squeezes fluid out when compressed and sucks fluid in when decompressed. In other words, if you fail to apply a moderate amount of pressure briefly and then release pressure on your joints, multiple times per day, the tissue becomes deficient in oxygen and nutrients and starts to malfunction. As you get older the diminished mitochondrial function makes your tissue even more dependent on this alternating movement, so lack of movement is ever more destructive, until your joints literally and painfully fall apart. This is rather tragic, since a lot of people move less as they get older, in part as a response to pain. Not moving your joints is the worst thing you can do when they need the oxygen and nutrients for maintenance. This creates a pernicious positive feedback loop, with pain causing less movement, which causes less interstitial fluid pumping, which reduces oxygen delivery, which causes more energy deficit, which causes more rapid deterioration of the tissue, which causes more inflammation, which causes more pain, which causes less movement.... The solution is to religiously perform full range of motion repetitive non-weight bearing brief stretching exercises on all joints that usually don't get enough exercise, which means shoulder, hip, knee, ankle, and on foot ligaments. The key parts are "full range of motion" and "repetitive brief". Partial range of motion without full stretch and sustained pressures are not effective in the sponge-pumping mechanism. Spine joints are a bit different matter. You need to do at least 10 - 20 movements per joint, and they have to be full range of motion, or else there will be joint parts that don't get enough fluid movement and deteriorate. I do 10 shoulder circumductions in each direction (total 20), 10 flexion/extension, 10 horizontal abduction/adduction (google descriptions of what each movement means), 10 squats with full flexion of both knees and hips (knees touch chest and buttocks touch ankles), with transitions to kneeling (with full dorsal flexion of MTP joints and full flexion of ankle joint), every day after waking up and preferably once during the day. If you can't squat or do full range of motion due to weakness or pain, do the leg exercises on your back or do partial stretching while trying to increase stretch to full range. I can attest to the efficacy of the regimen. I had shoulder injuries that caused rotator cuff pain, and I had the beginnings of hip, knee and foot pain (plantar fasciitis) a few years ago. All of the symptoms are completely resolved with exercise but twinges of pain return quickly if I slack off. Of course, if your joints are already anatomically destroyed rather than having just inflammatory changes it may be too late to completely regain function - but it's never too late to try to salvage what is left. It may mean working through mild to moderate pain but it's worth it. Note of caution - if the joints are unstable mechanically or the pain is extreme and unrelenting, consult a physician with expertise in exercise science. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 22:01:44 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 14:01:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: References: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> <009b01d81160$6d036020$470a2060$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011301d8116d$fac2fda0$f048f8e0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Monday, January 24, 2022 12:36 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics 'It's just age old buddy' - didn't say old age. Physically we start down hill as soon as we mature - sad thought for the day, eh? Your knees usually begin to deteriorate because of: Your age: The most common types of arthritis to cause knee deterioration and pain in aged knees include osteoarthritis (worn out cartilage), rheumatoid arthritis (autoimmune disease), gout (acid buildup in joints) and septic arthritis (infected knee joint). So you probably have the beginnings of osteoarthritis In the 50s there was a TV show that played the pop hits of the week. The guy was Snooky Landsen. I saw him trying to sing an Elvis song, I think it was Heartbreak Hotel, and it was the strangest thing I have ever seen in music. Dorkishness, nerdism, does not begin to describe what he did to that song. The show went off the air shortly after that. bill w Ja to all. Regarding those covid vaccines, one of the biggest remaining unknowns is the long term effects of messing with the immune system. Whether or not those things have any long term effect, let us think a thought-experiment. Assume they have nooooo long term immune system response. We have a spectrum of beliefs on the vaccines, a spectrum of fear of vaccines and covid (as I illustrated with the two-axis plot a few months ago.) Thought experiment, what if? there are people who start to spread the word that they were compelled to get a covid vaccine and it triggered their (fill in your favorite auto-immune disorder.) When a malady starts to get a lot of press, some people imagine that they have that, which may form a positive feedback loop. People develop auto-immune disorders of all kinds regardless of what immune-therapy they are receiving, but this hands them a perfect blame point. We are STILL seeing vaccines blamed for autism in spite of having no convincing evidence of a correlation. My prediction: any time now (surprised it hasn?t already happened) we will start hearing some auto-immune disorder is triggered by the covid vaccines. Pardon me for mixing two different topics under a third and completely unrelated subject line. Regarding Snooky doing Elvis, there was a disc Pat Boone produced a heavy metal album. Not kidding, he really did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Metal_Mood:_No_More_Mr._Nice_Guy I bought it as a gag gift for my mother in law, who was a huge fan back in the 50s. Ya gotta hand it to him, the man can croon. So? we put it on, just to see what he did. Well? much to our surprise? he really improved most of the songs he covered. Some heavy metal pieces really do have a tune, and if one Pat-Boone-izes them with a pleasant voice such as his, can really be most tolerable. Please please heavy metalers, don?t mess with Boone?s material. April Love on screechy guitars, let?s just not go there por favor. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Jan 24 22:26:53 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 09:26:53 +1100 Subject: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: <011301d8116d$fac2fda0$f048f8e0$@rainier66.com> References: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> <009b01d81160$6d036020$470a2060$@rainier66.com> <011301d8116d$fac2fda0$f048f8e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jan 2022 at 08:03, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > *Sent:* Monday, January 24, 2022 12:36 PM > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal > the Unity of Mathematics > > > > 'It's just age old buddy' - didn't say old age. Physically we start down > hill as soon as we mature - sad thought for the day, eh? > > > > Your knees usually begin to deteriorate because of: Your age: The most > common types of arthritis to cause knee deterioration and pain in aged > knees include *osteoarthritis* (worn out cartilage), rheumatoid arthritis > (autoimmune disease), gout (acid buildup in joints) and septic arthritis > (infected knee joint). So you probably have the beginnings of > osteoarthritis In the 50s there was a TV show that played the pop hits of > the week. The guy was Snooky Landsen. I saw him trying to sing an Elvis > song, I think it was Heartbreak Hotel, and it was the strangest thing I > have ever seen in music. Dorkishness, nerdism, does not begin to describe > what he did to that song. The show went off the air shortly after that. > bill w > > > > > > Ja to all. > > > > Regarding those covid vaccines, one of the biggest remaining unknowns is > the long term effects of messing with the immune system. Whether or not > those things have any long term effect, let us think a thought-experiment. > Assume they have nooooo long term immune system response. We have a > spectrum of beliefs on the vaccines, a spectrum of fear of vaccines and > covid (as I illustrated with the two-axis plot a few months ago.) > > > > Thought experiment, what if? there are people who start to spread the word > that they were compelled to get a covid vaccine and it triggered their > (fill in your favorite auto-immune disorder.) When a malady starts to get > a lot of press, some people imagine that they have that, which may form a > positive feedback loop. People develop auto-immune disorders of all kinds > regardless of what immune-therapy they are receiving, but this hands them a > perfect blame point. We are STILL seeing vaccines blamed for autism in > spite of having no convincing evidence of a correlation. My prediction: > any time now (surprised it hasn?t already happened) we will start hearing > some auto-immune disorder is triggered by the covid vaccines. > There are plenty of examples of viruses causing long term effects, up to decades later, but no convincing examples of vaccines doing the same. A vaccine is essentially a small part of the virus it is protecting against, so if you are worried about the vaccine, you should be more worried about the virus. The difference is that people can blame the doctor, the drug company, the government or even themselves for actively doing something that causes an adverse reaction, while putting down infection with the virus to bad luck. > Pardon me for mixing two different topics under a third and completely > unrelated subject line. Regarding Snooky doing Elvis, there was a disc Pat > Boone produced a heavy metal album. Not kidding, he really did: > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Metal_Mood:_No_More_Mr._Nice_Guy > > > > I bought it as a gag gift for my mother in law, who was a huge fan back in > the 50s. Ya gotta hand it to him, the man can croon. So? we put it on, > just to see what he did. Well? much to our surprise? he really improved > most of the songs he covered. Some heavy metal pieces really do have a > tune, and if one Pat-Boone-izes them with a pleasant voice such as his, can > really be most tolerable. Please please heavy metalers, don?t mess with > Boone?s material. April Love on screechy guitars, let?s just not go there > por favor. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 23:07:15 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 15:07:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Rafal's knee nostrum was Re: knees and math In-Reply-To: References: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <013901d81177$21563d70$6402b850$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Rafal's knee nostrum was Re: knees and math On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 12:01 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: So... why do old knees hurt but young knees do not? What physiological change took place? ### Mitochondrial damage accumulates over time, decreasing energy-generating capacity, shifting energy generation towards glycolysis, decreasing reserves needed for maintenance of tissue integrity (in cartilage it's proteoglycan turnover). Cartilage that is not maintained becomes brittle, inflammatory response is mounted against the degenerating tissue matrix and chondrocytes die off, the whole mess irritates surrounding tissues that have innervation and pain signals are generated?. - if the joints are unstable mechanically or the pain is extreme and unrelenting, consult a physician with expertise in exercise science. Rafal WOWsers, thanks Dr. Rafal! I have been ramping up the exercise. The FitBit is keeping track of it all, so I made some graphs and charts for my archives. Interesting stuff, and I think you are right: keep them moving, it isn?t so much wear and tear with joints, it is wear and repair. Keep that cycle going and it keeps going. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jan 24 23:18:31 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 15:18:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] long-term health effects: was: RE: knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics Message-ID: <014a01d81178$b446dbc0$1cd49340$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat ? >?There are plenty of examples of viruses causing long term effects, up to decades later, but no convincing examples of vaccines doing the same. A vaccine is essentially a small part of the virus it is protecting against, so if you are worried about the vaccine, you should be more worried about the virus. The difference is that people can blame the doctor, the drug company, the government or even themselves for actively doing something that causes an adverse reaction, while putting down infection with the virus to bad luck? Stathis No doubt, however I already caught and recovered from alpha before either vaccination, so natural immunity probably would have been sufficient. In retrospect, I cannot justify getting either vaccine, but what is past is past. We didn?t know anything at the time about the possible long-term effects and it wasn?t clear in October that the immunity is short-lived. Now there is emerging indications (from Israel) that getting the current vaccines protect against alpha and delta but may increase one?s susceptibility to the apparently far less lethal omicron, which may also have long-term health consequences. In retrospect, I am very surprised the medical community did not issue a guideline or suggestion if you have already had covid, don?t take the vaccine. It was clear by summer of 2020 that catching twice is unlikely. An excellent point made earlier is that we should have people in every group so we get some good data: those who didn?t catch and didn?t take, those who caught and took anyway (me) those who caught and didn?t take, those who didn?t catch and did take. Then we get four datasets. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jan 25 03:09:37 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 19:09:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] webb is there Message-ID: <004001d81198$fcdeca30$f69c5e90$@rainier66.com> OK cool, Webb is now at L2, so most of the sun's energy is being blocked by the earth. So now it needs to finish cooling. OK Webb, cool! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 25 13:52:35 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 13:52:35 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Equations built Google. What's next? Message-ID: Equations have built giants like Google. Who will find the next billion-dollar piece of math? David Sumpter Mon 24 Jan 2022 Quote: Whenever there is a breakthrough application of an equation, we see quite a few imitations. The current boom in artificial intelligence is mainly driven by just two equations ? gradient descent and logistic regression ? which are put together in what is called a neural network. But history shows that the next great leap forward doesn?t come from repeated use of the same mathematical trick. It comes instead from an entirely new idea, read from the darker pages of the book of mathematics. ---------------- BillK From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 25 15:26:37 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 10:26:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws Message-ID: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/01/12/why-tesla-can-program-its-cars-to-break-road-safety-laws *Thousands of Teslas are now being equipped with a feature that prompts the car to break common traffic laws ? and the revelation is prompting some advocates to question the safety benefits of automated vehicle technology when unsafe human drivers are allowed to program it to do things that endanger other road users.In an October 2021 update its deceptively named ?Full Self Driving Mode? beta software, the controversial Texas automaker introduced a new feature that allows drivers to pick one of three custom driving ?profiles? ? ?chill,? ?average,? and ?assertive? ? which moderates how aggressively the vehicle applies many of its automated safety features on U.S. roads.The rollout went largely unnoticed by street safety advocates until a Jan. 9 article in The Verge, when journalist Emma Roth revealed that putting a Tesla in ?assertive? mode will effectively direct the car to tailgate other motorists, perform unsafe passing maneuvers, and roll through certain stops (?average? mode isn?t much safer). All those behaviors are illegal in most U.S. states, and experts say there?s no reason why Tesla shouldn?t be required to program its vehicles to follow the local rules of the road, even when drivers travel between jurisdictions with varying safety standards.?Basically, Tesla is programming its cars to break laws,? said Phil Koopman, an expert in autonomous vehicle technology and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. ?Even if [those laws] vary from state to state and city to city, these cars knows where they are, and the local laws are clearly published. If you want to build an AV that drives in more than one jurisdiction and you want it to follow the rules, there?s no reason you can?t program it up to do that. It sounds like a lot of work, but this is a trillion-dollar industry we?re talking about.?* ... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Jan 25 15:44:35 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 08:44:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There is "the letter of the law" and there is "the spirit of the law". For example, when the speed limit is 50 MPH, most people will travel at 55 MPH. The safest speed is "the speed of traffic". So, if you program a car to never go over 50 MPH, while it is true that it is not breaking "the letter of the law", it will be dangerous, and more likely to cause accidents, as other drivers try to get around you. On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 8:27 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/01/12/why-tesla-can-program-its-cars-to-break-road-safety-laws > > > > > > > > > *Thousands of Teslas are now being equipped with a feature that prompts > the car to break common traffic laws ? and the revelation is prompting some > advocates to question the safety benefits of automated vehicle technology > when unsafe human drivers are allowed to program it to do things that > endanger other road users.In an October 2021 update its deceptively named > ?Full Self Driving Mode? beta software, the controversial Texas automaker > introduced a new feature that allows drivers to pick one of three custom > driving ?profiles? ? ?chill,? ?average,? and ?assertive? ? which moderates > how aggressively the vehicle applies many of its automated safety features > on U.S. roads.The rollout went largely unnoticed by street safety advocates > until a Jan. 9 article in The Verge, when journalist Emma Roth revealed > that putting a Tesla in ?assertive? mode will effectively direct the car to > tailgate other motorists, perform unsafe passing maneuvers, and roll > through certain stops (?average? mode isn?t much safer). All those > behaviors are illegal in most U.S. states, and experts say there?s no > reason why Tesla shouldn?t be required to program its vehicles to follow > the local rules of the road, even when drivers travel between jurisdictions > with varying safety standards.?Basically, Tesla is programming its cars to > break laws,? said Phil Koopman, an expert in autonomous vehicle technology > and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. ?Even if [those > laws] vary from state to state and city to city, these cars knows where > they are, and the local laws are clearly published. If you want to build an > AV that drives in more than one jurisdiction and you want it to follow the > rules, there?s no reason you can?t program it up to do that. It sounds like > a lot of work, but this is a trillion-dollar industry we?re talking about.?* > > ... > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 25 15:52:22 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:52:22 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jan 2022 at 15:29, Dave S via extropy-chat wrote: > > https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/01/12/why-tesla-can-program-its-cars-to-break-road-safety-laws > > Thousands of Teslas are now being equipped with a feature that prompts the car to break common traffic laws ? and the revelation is prompting some advocates to question the safety benefits of automated vehicle technology when unsafe human drivers are allowed to program it to do things that endanger other road users. > > In an October 2021 update its deceptively named ?Full Self Driving Mode? beta software, the controversial Texas automaker introduced a new feature that allows drivers to pick one of three custom driving ?profiles? ? ?chill,? ?average,? and ?assertive? ? which moderates how aggressively the vehicle applies many of its automated safety features on U.S. roads. > > The rollout went largely unnoticed by street safety advocates until a Jan. 9 article in The Verge, when journalist Emma Roth revealed that putting a Tesla in ?assertive? mode will effectively direct the car to tailgate other motorists, perform unsafe passing maneuvers, and roll through certain stops (?average? mode isn?t much safer). All those behaviors are illegal in most U.S. states, and experts say there?s no reason why Tesla shouldn?t be required to program its vehicles to follow the local rules of the road, even when drivers travel between jurisdictions with varying safety standards. > > ?Basically, Tesla is programming its cars to break laws,? said Phil Koopman, an expert in autonomous vehicle technology and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. ?Even if [those laws] vary from state to state and city to city, these cars knows where they are, and the local laws are clearly published. If you want to build an AV that drives in more than one jurisdiction and you want it to follow the rules, there?s no reason you can?t program it up to do that. It sounds like a lot of work, but this is a trillion-dollar industry we?re talking about.? > _______________________________________________ Well, I don't know what USA drivers are like, but in the UK if you drive within the speed limits you will rapidly get a queue of cars tail-gating you and trying to kill themselves by desperate overtaking. The only time keeping to the speed limit is expected is when slowing down for speed cameras or in a queue behind a police patrol car full of laughing policemen. BillK From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jan 25 16:04:31 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 11:04:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 10:55 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, 25 Jan 2022 at 15:29, Dave S via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > > https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/01/12/why-tesla-can-program-its-cars-to-break-road-safety-laws > > Well, I don't know what USA drivers are like, but in the UK if you > drive within the speed limits you will rapidly get a queue of cars > tail-gating you and trying to kill themselves by desperate overtaking. > The only time keeping to the speed limit is expected is when slowing > down for speed cameras or in a queue behind a police patrol car full > of laughing policemen. > Yeah, it's the same here. The article made no mention of speed limits, which presumably were already being exceeded. These are the problematic behaviors: *The rollout went largely unnoticed by street safety advocates until a Jan. 9 article in The Verge, when journalist Emma Roth revealed that putting a Tesla in ?assertive? mode will effectively direct the car to tailgate other motorists, perform unsafe passing maneuvers, and roll through certain stops (?average? mode isn?t much safer). All those behaviors are illegal in most U.S. states, and experts say there?s no reason why Tesla shouldn?t be required to program its vehicles to follow the local rules of the road, even when drivers travel between jurisdictions with varying safety standards.* -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From guessmyneeds at yahoo.com Tue Jan 25 16:31:54 2022 From: guessmyneeds at yahoo.com (Sherry Knepper) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 16:31:54 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ExI] long-term health effects: was: RE: knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: <014a01d81178$b446dbc0$1cd49340$@rainier66.com> References: <014a01d81178$b446dbc0$1cd49340$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <1029190560.1130277.1643128314173@mail.yahoo.com> I'm 68 and sick childhood had more vaccines than I can count.? So far no bad effects that I know of so I have no fear of them except for first-time vaccines. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 6:24 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: ? ? From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat ? >?There are plenty of examples of viruses causing long term effects, up to decades later, but no convincing examples of vaccines doing the same. A vaccine is essentially a small part of the virus it is protecting against, so if you are worried about the vaccine, you should be more worried about the virus. The difference is that people can blame the doctor, the drug company, the government or even themselves for actively doing something that causes an adverse reaction, while putting down infection with the virus to bad luck? Stathis ? No doubt, however I already caught and recovered from alpha before either vaccination, so natural immunity probably would have been sufficient.? In retrospect, I cannot justify getting either vaccine, but what is past is past.? We didn?t know anything at the time about the possible long-term effects and it wasn?t clear in October that the immunity is short-lived.? Now there is emerging indications (from Israel) that getting the current vaccines protect against alpha and delta but may increase one?s susceptibility to the apparently far less lethal omicron, which may also have long-term health consequences. ? In retrospect, I am very surprised the medical community did not issue a guideline or suggestion if you have already had covid, don?t take the vaccine.? It was clear by summer of 2020 that catching twice is unlikely.? An excellent point made earlier is that we should have people in every group so we get some good data: those who didn?t catch and didn?t take, those who caught and took anyway (me) those who caught and didn?t take, those who didn?t catch and did take.? Then we get four datasets. ? 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 Tue Jan 25 18:04:00 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 05:04:00 +1100 Subject: [ExI] long-term health effects: was: RE: knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: <014a01d81178$b446dbc0$1cd49340$@rainier66.com> References: <014a01d81178$b446dbc0$1cd49340$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jan 2022 at 09:19, spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat > *?* > > >?There are plenty of examples of viruses causing long term effects, up to > decades later, but no convincing examples of vaccines doing the same. A > vaccine is essentially a small part of the virus it is protecting against, > so if you are worried about the vaccine, you should be more worried about > the virus. The difference is that people can blame the doctor, the drug > company, the government or even themselves for actively doing something > that causes an adverse reaction, while putting down infection with the > virus to bad luck? Stathis > > > > No doubt, however I already caught and recovered from alpha before either > vaccination, so natural immunity probably would have been sufficient. In > retrospect, I cannot justify getting either vaccine, but what is past is > past. We didn?t know anything at the time about the possible long-term > effects and it wasn?t clear in October that the immunity is short-lived. > Now there is emerging indications (from Israel) that getting the current > vaccines protect against alpha and delta but may increase one?s > susceptibility to the apparently far less lethal omicron, which may also > have long-term health consequences. > > > > In retrospect, I am very surprised the medical community did not issue a > guideline or suggestion if you have already had covid, don?t take the > vaccine. It was clear by summer of 2020 that catching twice is unlikely. > An excellent point made earlier is that we should have people in every > group so we get some good data: those who didn?t catch and didn?t take, > those who caught and took anyway (me) those who caught and didn?t take, > those who didn?t catch and did take. Then we get four datasets. > You were much more likely to have had some other respiratory virus if you had symptoms but no test very early in 2020, which I think is when you said you might have had COVID. In any case, natural immunity does not last, and it is still recommended that you be vaccinated. It is likely that there will be more variants like omicron arising which evade immunity from previous variants or vaccines, and a system will probably develop, as with the flu vaccine, whereby regular new vaccines try to anticipate the most common new variants. It?s unfortunately not guaranteed that new variants will be less harmful, and not guaranteed that they won?t evade vaccines, although so far it looks like a booster shot will at least reduce the risk of severe illness, if not infection, with omicron. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 04:28:21 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 23:28:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 10:28 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/01/12/why-tesla-can-program-its-cars-to-break-road-safety-laws > > > > > > > > > *Thousands of Teslas are now being equipped with a feature that prompts > the car to break common traffic laws ? and the revelation is prompting some > advocates to question the safety benefits of automated vehicle technology > when unsafe human drivers are allowed to program it to do things that > endanger other road users.In an October 2021 update its deceptively named > ?Full Self Driving Mode? beta software, the controversial Texas automaker > introduced a new feature that allows drivers to pick one of three custom > driving ?profiles? ? ?chill,? ?average,? and ?assertive? ? which moderates > how aggressively the vehicle applies many of its automated safety features > on U.S. roads.The rollout went largely unnoticed by street safety advocates > until a Jan. 9 article in The Verge, when journalist Emma Roth revealed > that putting a Tesla in ?assertive? mode will effectively direct the car to > tailgate other motorists, perform unsafe passing maneuvers, and roll > through certain stops (?average? mode isn?t much safer). All those > behaviors are illegal in most U.S. states, and experts say there?s no > reason why Tesla shouldn?t be required to program its vehicles to follow > the local rules of the road, even when drivers travel between jurisdictions > with varying safety standards.?Basically, Tesla is programming its cars to > break laws,? said Phil Koopman, an expert in autonomous vehicle technology > and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. ?Even if [those > laws] vary from state to state and city to city, these cars knows where > they are, and the local laws are clearly published. If you want to build an > AV that drives in more than one jurisdiction and you want it to follow the > rules, there?s no reason you can?t program it up to do that. It sounds like > a lot of work, but this is a trillion-dollar industry we?re talking about.?* > ### Another hatepiece on Tesla. If a human may choose to ignore a law on his own, then he must be able to choose to ignore a law when using a robot. It's obvious. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 04:36:43 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 23:36:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Rafal's knee nostrum was Re: knees and math In-Reply-To: <013901d81177$21563d70$6402b850$@rainier66.com> References: <00af01d81142$31a5c1d0$94f14570$@rainier66.com> <013901d81177$21563d70$6402b850$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 6:07 PM wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat > *Subject:* [ExI] Rafal's knee nostrum was Re: knees and math > > > > > > > > On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 12:01 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > So... why do old knees hurt but young knees do not? What physiological > change took place? > > > > ### Mitochondrial damage accumulates over time, decreasing > energy-generating capacity, shifting energy generation towards glycolysis, > decreasing reserves needed for maintenance of tissue integrity (in > cartilage it's proteoglycan turnover). Cartilage that is not maintained > becomes brittle, inflammatory response is mounted against the degenerating > tissue matrix and chondrocytes die off, the whole mess irritates > surrounding tissues that have innervation and pain signals are generated?. > - if the joints are unstable mechanically or the pain is extreme and > unrelenting, consult a physician with expertise in exercise science. > > > > Rafal > > > > > > WOWsers, thanks Dr. Rafal! > > > > I have been ramping up the exercise. The FitBit is keeping track of it > all, so I made some graphs and charts for my archives. Interesting stuff, > and I think you are right: keep them moving, it isn?t so much wear and tear > with joints, it is wear and repair. Keep that cycle going and it keeps > going. > ### While aerobic exercise is certainly good for you, I need to stress that the stretch exercises I described are a completely different beast, intended to achieve a different goal. Running is probably good for your joints, too, in the right dose but stretch exercises help with joint maintenance through a different mechanism and should be used in parallel to aerobic and weigh exercise (and weight-bearing exercise is yet another and different aspect of the comprehensive body maintenance program, important for yet another task - prevention of osteoporosis and frailty). Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 04:40:12 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 23:40:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] long-term health effects: was: RE: knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: References: <014a01d81178$b446dbc0$1cd49340$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 1:06 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > In any case, natural immunity does not last, and it is still recommended > that you be vaccinated. > ### This recommendation is not evidence-based medicine. It's pure politicized garbage. > It is likely that there will be more variants like omicron arising which > evade immunity from previous variants or vaccines, and a system will > probably develop, as with the flu vaccine, whereby regular new vaccines try > to anticipate the most common new variants. > ### That would be an idiotic and horrible outcome of the current unpleasantness. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 04:48:22 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 23:48:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some recent thoughts on minarchism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 10:01 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > I have no background in political theory, but I do know people somewhat. > It starts with taxes: give an organization the ability to tax and then why > not raise taxes? The people want services, are demanding services, and so > the pols have the perfect excuse to raise taxes. Or better yet, borrow > money, which doesn't require public approval (often at the local level I > suppose people vote on bond issues). Bread and circuses - we all know > this. So the idea of a minimalist government seems like a pipe dream. > What we have now suggests a positive feedback cycle, eh? bill w > ### Minarchist government won't happen among morons who demand services from politicians and end up being no more than trash sticking to the politicians' bootsoles. However, we the enlightened citizens, united under the beacon of a clear and well defined ideology, such as the rule "The government's *only* proper job is to survive", can stand up to the Balrogs and say "Thou shalt not pass!", with good effect. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 04:53:16 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 23:53:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 6:08 AM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 20:18, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 2:02 AM Stathis Papaioannou >> wrote: >> >>> >>>> And don't get me started on masks, these dehumanizing, humiliating >>>> pieces of medically useless trash. >>>> >>> >>> OK, so your objection is a practical one, not a moral one. If masks were >>> effective, say reducing R0 from 1.1 with voluntary use to 0.9 with mandated >>> use and thereby potentially ending the epidemic, you would be OK with >>> mandating them, right? >>> >> >> ### Let's continue exploring the misogynistic virus counterfactual: >> Let's now posit that women can be vaccinated and fully protected from harm. >> Do men still have an obligation to be vaccinated? No, since everybody who >> needs protection can obtain protection at low cost to herself and there is >> no justification to impose on the lives of men. The changed premise of >> vaccination availability for women changes the calculus of what constitutes >> efficient action, and equitable apportionment of burdens among members of >> society, and therefore it changes the type of action that is justified. >> >> Let's now look at your example. Obviously, an intervention that reduces >> R0 below 1 in a population is only effective in ending an epidemic if there >> are no reservoirs of the pathogen capable of re-introducing it into the >> population (such reservoirs may be other human populations not affected by >> the intervention or they may be animals). If there are significant >> reservoirs, e.g when the infectious agent is endemic, such as Covid, the >> intervention that only slightly affects R0 will fail, and therefore is not >> justified under almost any circumstances. Full-blown epidemics usually end >> when the population dies out or reaches herd immunity by infection or >> vaccination, not through measures that only slow the spread of the disease. >> >> Sure, in a counterfactual world where mask wearing eliminates epidemics I >> would in certain situations endorse mask wearing despite their dehumanizing >> nature but in the real world masks provide absolutely no long-term benefit >> and should be vigorously opposed. It's easy to construct counterfactuals to >> justify just about anything (like my misogynistic virus world that >> justifies vaccine mandates) but so what? >> > > As long as you?re not a nasty man who doesn?t care if others die. > >> > ### I don't quite understand what you wrote. Who is that nasty man who doesn't care if others die? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 04:56:54 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 23:56:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 1:16 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > A society which is soft on crime results in more crime, which results in > more fear and distrust, which results in reduced acceptance of those less > similar which results in crackdowns on crime. This notion is in harmony > with Pinker, Dawkins, Geoffrey Miller and to a large extent even Nicholas > Christakis. > ### As the quote goes: ?Hard times *create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times*.? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 05:01:33 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 00:01:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enough time has passed... In-Reply-To: References: <007d01d80fc7$e799bb30$b6cd3190$@rainier66.com> <008701d80fc8$c78dbb60$56a93220$@rainier66.com> <010501d80fdf$7ee77010$7cb65030$@rainier66.com> <007601d8107a$47806140$d68123c0$@rainier66.com> <003001d81085$1649cde0$42dd69a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 2:29 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Bloodthirst solves nothing. > ### Oh, to the contrary, bloodthirst solves a lot of problems, which is why men evolved to be so bloodthirsty. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 11:17:53 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 11:17:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] long-term health effects: was: RE: knees and math: was RE: How Infinite Series Reveal the Unity of Mathematics In-Reply-To: References: <014a01d81178$b446dbc0$1cd49340$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jan 2022 at 04:45, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 1:06 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> It is likely that there will be more variants like omicron arising which evade immunity from previous variants or vaccines, and a system will probably develop, as with the flu vaccine, whereby regular new vaccines try to anticipate the most common new variants. > > > ### That would be an idiotic and horrible outcome of the current unpleasantness. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ 'idiotic and horrible" ??? - but that is the intended outcome! Don't forget that in the USA, medical and pharma companies are a huge 'for-profit' industry. As has been noted there is little profit for them in curing sickness and disease. For them, the ideal solution is not curing, but a regular, expensive treatment plan to keep their profits flowing. So that's what Americans get. It's the American Way! Luckily for the rest of the world, generic treatment alternatives outside the patent system are appearing and the virus itself also appears to be becoming less dangerous. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 13:01:13 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 13:01:13 +0000 Subject: [ExI] GPT-3 Improving accuracy Message-ID: One of the problems with GPT-3 extracting data from the internet is that it often includes misinformation from poor sources. OpenAI is trying to correct this. Quote: WebGPT: Improving the Factual Accuracy of Language Models through Web Browsing December 16, 2021 We've fine-tuned GPT-3 to more accurately answer open-ended questions using a text-based web browser. Our prototype copies how humans research answers to questions online?it submits search queries, follows links, and scrolls up and down web pages. It is trained to cite its sources, which makes it easier to give feedback to improve factual accuracy. We're excited about developing more truthful AI, but challenges remain, such as coping with unfamiliar types of questions. ------- Improving all the time! BillK From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 13:15:03 2022 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 08:15:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 11:30 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 10:28 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/01/12/why-tesla-can-program-its-cars-to-break-road-safety-laws >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> *Thousands of Teslas are now being equipped with a feature that prompts >> the car to break common traffic laws ? and the revelation is prompting some >> advocates to question the safety benefits of automated vehicle technology >> when unsafe human drivers are allowed to program it to do things that >> endanger other road users.In an October 2021 update its deceptively named >> ?Full Self Driving Mode? beta software, the controversial Texas automaker >> introduced a new feature that allows drivers to pick one of three custom >> driving ?profiles? ? ?chill,? ?average,? and ?assertive? ? which moderates >> how aggressively the vehicle applies many of its automated safety features >> on U.S. roads.The rollout went largely unnoticed by street safety advocates >> until a Jan. 9 article in The Verge, when journalist Emma Roth revealed >> that putting a Tesla in ?assertive? mode will effectively direct the car to >> tailgate other motorists, perform unsafe passing maneuvers, and roll >> through certain stops (?average? mode isn?t much safer). All those >> behaviors are illegal in most U.S. states, and experts say there?s no >> reason why Tesla shouldn?t be required to program its vehicles to follow >> the local rules of the road, even when drivers travel between jurisdictions >> with varying safety standards.?Basically, Tesla is programming its cars to >> break laws,? said Phil Koopman, an expert in autonomous vehicle technology >> and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. ?Even if [those >> laws] vary from state to state and city to city, these cars knows where >> they are, and the local laws are clearly published. If you want to build an >> AV that drives in more than one jurisdiction and you want it to follow the >> rules, there?s no reason you can?t program it up to do that. It sounds like >> a lot of work, but this is a trillion-dollar industry we?re talking about.?* >> > > ### Another hatepiece on Tesla. If a human may choose to ignore a law on > his own, then he must be able to choose to ignore a law when using a robot. > It's obvious. > Indeed, one could similarly ask "Why are cars sold today with speed governors whose limits are set beyond any legal speed limit?" These car manufacturers are allowing drivers to violate the law. The answer is there are many situations where it is acceptable to break a law under the "choice of evils" defense: ?[c]onduct which the actor believes to be necessary to avoid harm or evil?is justifiable, provided that: (a) the harm or evil sought to be avoided by such conduct is greater than that sought to be prevented by the law defining the offense charged? (Model Penal Code ? 3.02(1)(a)). For example, if you're driving someone in need of urgent care to the hospital, you can violate speed limits (or enable Tesla's agressive mode) and use the choice of evils defense to be found blameless. Other examples: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-criminallaw/chapter/5-4-defenses-based-on-choice/ I wouldn't want to be in a car that prevented the vehicle from performing an illegal U-turn in the event a tornado us spotted on the horizon. Will self-piloting cars be capable of recognizing such dangers, or weighing harms and evils, or does that require Turing-test-passing levels of intelligence? Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 14:03:58 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 09:03:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 8:17 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Indeed, one could similarly ask "Why are cars sold today with speed > governors whose limits are set beyond any legal speed limit?" These car > manufacturers are allowing drivers to violate the law. > One reason is that cars are sometimes used in places where speed limits don't apply. The answer is there are many situations where it is acceptable to break a > law under the "choice of evils" defense: > Sure. People should be able to intentionally violate the law. Putting your self-driving car in an aggressive mode that violates laws for no other reason than saving a few seconds or being "cool" is not sufficient justification, IMO. I wouldn't want to be in a car that prevented the vehicle from performing > an illegal U-turn in the event a tornado us spotted on the horizon. Will > self-piloting cars be capable of recognizing such dangers, or weighing > harms and evils, or does that require Turing-test-passing levels of > intelligence? > A human could always take over the driving and accept responsibility for their aggressive driving. Of course, if a Tesla is involved in an accident and it's determined that it was due to the car being in aggressive mode, the driver could certainly be culpable. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 15:03:21 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 09:03:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Some recent thoughts on minarchism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: we the enlightened citizens, united under the beacon of a clear and well defined ideology, such as the rule "The government's *only* proper job is to survive", can stand up to the Balrogs and say "Thou shalt not pass!", with good effect. Rafal Rafal, judging by the actions of the voters the last several years, just what percentage of them would you say is 'enlightened'? Unlike ancient Greece, where most of the population could not vote, we have expanded that to nearly everyone. Everyone is 'equal' in the voting booth. bill w On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 10:51 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 10:01 AM William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > >> I have no background in political theory, but I do know people somewhat. >> It starts with taxes: give an organization the ability to tax and then why >> not raise taxes? The people want services, are demanding services, and so >> the pols have the perfect excuse to raise taxes. Or better yet, borrow >> money, which doesn't require public approval (often at the local level I >> suppose people vote on bond issues). Bread and circuses - we all know >> this. So the idea of a minimalist government seems like a pipe dream. >> What we have now suggests a positive feedback cycle, eh? bill w >> > > ### Minarchist government won't happen among morons who demand services > from politicians and end up being no more than trash sticking to > the politicians' bootsoles. > > However, > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > 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 26 15:31:57 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 09:31:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ### Another hatepiece on Tesla. If a human may choose to ignore a law on his own, then he must be able to choose to ignore a law when using a robot. It's obvious. Rafal Maybe we should make cars that are not able to break laws. In 1969 I drove 120 miles per hour on back roads to get my wife to the hospital. She delivered 90 minutes later. In retrospect it would have been far safer for me to have delivered the baby on the roadside than drive so fast. It would have been very frustrating to have to obey the speed limit, I admit. We have catered to our need for speed and what has it gotten us? Tens of thousands of deaths per year extra? Paradoxically, alcohol makes one feel that one is a great driver. Maybe we should let people who want to race, race at racing tracks. bill w On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 10:31 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 10:28 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/01/12/why-tesla-can-program-its-cars-to-break-road-safety-laws >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> *Thousands of Teslas are now being equipped with a feature that prompts >> the car to break common traffic laws ? and the revelation is prompting some >> advocates to question the safety benefits of automated vehicle technology >> when unsafe human drivers are allowed to program it to do things that >> endanger other road users.In an October 2021 update its deceptively named >> ?Full Self Driving Mode? beta software, the controversial Texas automaker >> introduced a new feature that allows drivers to pick one of three custom >> driving ?profiles? ? ?chill,? ?average,? and ?assertive? ? which moderates >> how aggressively the vehicle applies many of its automated safety features >> on U.S. roads.The rollout went largely unnoticed by street safety advocates >> until a Jan. 9 article in The Verge, when journalist Emma Roth revealed >> that putting a Tesla in ?assertive? mode will effectively direct the car to >> tailgate other motorists, perform unsafe passing maneuvers, and roll >> through certain stops (?average? mode isn?t much safer). All those >> behaviors are illegal in most U.S. states, and experts say there?s no >> reason why Tesla shouldn?t be required to program its vehicles to follow >> the local rules of the road, even when drivers travel between jurisdictions >> with varying safety standards.?Basically, Tesla is programming its cars to >> break laws,? said Phil Koopman, an expert in autonomous vehicle technology >> and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. ?Even if [those >> laws] vary from state to state and city to city, these cars knows where >> they are, and the local laws are clearly published. If you want to build an >> AV that drives in more than one jurisdiction and you want it to follow the >> rules, there?s no reason you can?t program it up to do that. It sounds like >> a lot of work, but this is a trillion-dollar industry we?re talking about.?* >> > > ### Another hatepiece on Tesla. If a human may choose to ignore a law on > his own, then he must be able to choose to ignore a law when using a robot. > It's obvious. > > 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 spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 26 16:00:20 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 08:00:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007301d812cd$d26e28a0$774a79e0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Jason Resch via extropy-chat ? >?I wouldn't want to be in a car that prevented the vehicle from performing an illegal U-turn in the event a tornado you spotted on the horizon? Jason Heh, excellent example Jason. Around where I live, there is another example: how can you program your car to avoid dangerous neighborhoods? There was a controversial product a few years ago: a guide for tourists of places you don?t go. Understandably the people who live in the places you don?t go were most annoyed at the negative impact on their real estate value (well, some of them were annoyed (many were favorable to that rating (perhaps it attracted customers (and reduced their rent.)))) We have a local interstate freeway where passers-thru have been slain by gunfire while asleep in the back seat, on the interstate. I don?t go that way. We had two extrocons near here. So all these innocents were coming to my neighborhood where I know there damn well are areas where ya just don?t go, and the shortest route to places ya do go go thru there. Twenty yrs ago we had one of our extrocons at UC Berkeley. BERKELEY fer cryin out loud! Fortunately there were no injuries or serious fatalities. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 26 16:07:28 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 08:07:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: <007301d812cd$d26e28a0$774a79e0$@rainier66.com> References: <007301d812cd$d26e28a0$774a79e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007e01d812ce$d13e17a0$73ba46e0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com ?. >?how can you program your car to avoid dangerous neighborhoods?.... spike Perhaps I should define the term dangerous in this context. I live near San Jose. A dangerous neighborhood is not one where you hear gunshots at night. A dangerous neighborhood is one where you hear the clink clink clink of spent shells hit the pavement. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 16:41:30 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:41:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: <007e01d812ce$d13e17a0$73ba46e0$@rainier66.com> References: <007301d812cd$d26e28a0$774a79e0$@rainier66.com> <007e01d812ce$d13e17a0$73ba46e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: So, what is an extrocon? Google doesn't know. Jason, that's a good example, but if you can turn off the safety features they are useless. Idea: sync the car to a weather signal and when an emergency occurs certain safety features are turned off for a period of time. bill w On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 10:09 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > *?.* > > > > >?how can you program your car to avoid dangerous neighborhoods?.... spike > > > > > > > > Perhaps I should define the term dangerous in this context. I live near > San Jose. A dangerous neighborhood is not one where you hear gunshots at > night. A dangerous neighborhood is one where you hear the clink clink > clink of spent shells hit the pavement. > > > > 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 26 17:16:16 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 09:16:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] wat is an extrocon was: RE: Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws Message-ID: <00d001d812d8$6e2a6e20$4a7f4a60$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws So, what is an extrocon? Google doesn't know. ? bill w The extrocons were kinda like a Zoom meeting, except that the participants would physically transport their carcasses to a common geographical location where they would? Oh wait, retract all. BillW I have grown accustomed to explaining to teenagers how things were in the olden days (defined as before they were born.) For most of us here, enlightened ones all, we remember when a ?meeting? required actual literal transportation, where people would do things such as meet face-to-unmasked face, and ?shake hands? (another one of those odd (and currently ill-advised) social customs to which the young are not accustomed in our tragically contagious times.) Billw, that?s why I treasure friends such as you and the others who remember how it was before 2019. May you live at least as long as I do, and may that be a long time. Those extrocons took place generally in the 90s up to about 2001 or so. Oh we had a blast. It was so much fun, meeting in person the people whose writings I had read for years, listening to presentations by the illuminated ones, even being invited to make a pitch myself, which I used to urge people to write paper notes to Gina Nanogirl Miller and Keith Henson, no excuses do it now while I am standing here etc, for in their cases there was no alternative means of communication. I haven?t heard from Gina in a long dang time. Keith moved down to San Diego a few years ago and hasn?t been active much online for about the past coupla years I think. Being upstanding extropians, they wrote the notes. I collected them, packaged them up, posted them to the recipients. We had a party at my home which has gone down in the folklore of my neighborhood, a story that I am a worshipper of some deity by the name of Dick Seacups where we prayed a kind of rosary known as hakosote (details cheerfully available on request (most cheerfully (they are some fun details.))) Oh I learned so much. spike On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 10:09 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: From: spike at rainier66.com > ?. >?how can you program your car to avoid dangerous neighborhoods?.... spike Perhaps I should define the term dangerous in this context. I live near San Jose. A dangerous neighborhood is not one where you hear gunshots at night. A dangerous neighborhood is one where you hear the clink clink clink of spent shells hit the pavement. 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 steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 17:20:55 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 12:20:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] wat is an extrocon was: RE: Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: <00d001d812d8$6e2a6e20$4a7f4a60$@rainier66.com> References: <00d001d812d8$6e2a6e20$4a7f4a60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Extrocon 2022 incoming? I'm in the northeastern US. Come hang, we can all get dim sum On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 12:17 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] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety > Laws > > > > So, what is an extrocon? Google doesn't know. > > ? bill w > > > > The extrocons were kinda like a Zoom meeting, except that the participants > would physically transport their carcasses to a common geographical > location where they would? > > > > Oh wait, retract all. BillW I have grown accustomed to explaining to > teenagers how things were in the olden days (defined as before they were > born.) For most of us here, enlightened ones all, we remember when a > ?meeting? required actual literal transportation, where people would do > things such as meet face-to-unmasked face, and ?shake hands? (another one > of those odd (and currently ill-advised) social customs to which the young > are not accustomed in our tragically contagious times.) Billw, that?s why > I treasure friends such as you and the others who remember how it was > before 2019. May you live at least as long as I do, and may that be a long > time. > > > > Those extrocons took place generally in the 90s up to about 2001 or so. > Oh we had a blast. It was so much fun, meeting in person the people whose > writings I had read for years, listening to presentations by the > illuminated ones, even being invited to make a pitch myself, which I used > to urge people to write paper notes to Gina Nanogirl Miller and Keith > Henson, no excuses do it now while I am standing here etc, for in their > cases there was no alternative means of communication. I haven?t heard > from Gina in a long dang time. Keith moved down to San Diego a few years > ago and hasn?t been active much online for about the past coupla years I > think. > > > > Being upstanding extropians, they wrote the notes. I collected them, > packaged them up, posted them to the recipients. We had a party at my home > which has gone down in the folklore of my neighborhood, a story that I am a > worshipper of some deity by the name of Dick Seacups where we prayed a kind > of rosary known as hakosote (details cheerfully available on request (most > cheerfully (they are some fun details.))) > > > > Oh I learned so much. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 10:09 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > > *From:* spike at rainier66.com > *?.* > > > > >?how can you program your car to avoid dangerous neighborhoods?.... spike > > > > > > > > Perhaps I should define the term dangerous in this context. I live near > San Jose. A dangerous neighborhood is not one where you hear gunshots at > night. A dangerous neighborhood is one where you hear the clink clink > clink of spent shells hit the pavement. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 26 17:37:32 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 09:37:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] wat is an extrocon was: RE: Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: <00d001d812d8$6e2a6e20$4a7f4a60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00eb01d812db$66be1260$343a3720$@rainier66.com> ?.> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] wat is an extrocon was: RE: Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws Extrocon 2022 incoming? I'm in the northeastern US. Come hang, we can all get dim sum Alternative: an extropy zoom meeting? That might be a total hoot. Way safer than getting inside a metal tube with the infectious masses coughing up the modern plague all around a prole and far cheaper. At some point we must accept the grim reality that neither the masks nor the vaccines are effective in stopping covid. The vaccines probably reduce the severity and reduce the risk of catching, but these measured didn?t work as advertised. Zoom is the way. Side note on that: I do DNA genealogy. Zoom meetings are now very common for distant family members to meet. Of course one cannot cruise for chicks at the family reunion that way (hey, it?s a southern thing) but I gave up that quirky practice 40 years ago. spike On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 12:17 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws So, what is an extrocon? Google doesn't know. ? bill w The extrocons were kinda like a Zoom meeting, except that the participants would physically transport their carcasses to a common geographical location where they would? Oh wait, retract all. BillW I have grown accustomed to explaining to teenagers how things were in the olden days ? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 17:45:47 2022 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 12:45:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: <007301d812cd$d26e28a0$774a79e0$@rainier66.com> References: <007301d812cd$d26e28a0$774a79e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:01 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Jason Resch via extropy-chat > *?* > > > > >?I wouldn't want to be in a car that prevented the vehicle from > performing an illegal U-turn in the event a tornado you spotted on the > horizon? > > > > Jason > > > > > > Heh, excellent example Jason. > > > Thanks. There are many black swan situations I don't think autopilot systems are designed for, but a person would immediately recognize as an imminent threat to be avoided: a mushroom cloud, tidal wave signs (receding water), an angry mob, a spilled chemical/fuel slick, a hijacker/robber pointing a weapon, a rock slide/mudslide/lava flow seen on an approaching hill, a forrest fire (or smoke indicating one), a volcanic eruption, etc. For current designs, the driver can take over, but many full self drive cars envision vehicles without steering controls for any passenger. I think such software will have to be programmed with a "fear if the unknown" if it can't classify what it's sensors are detecting then it might be most prudent to take avoidance steps, or request passenger input on what to do. Around where I live, there is another example: how can you program your car > to avoid dangerous neighborhoods? > > > > There was a controversial product a few years ago: a guide for tourists of > places you don?t go. Understandably the people who live in the places you > don?t go were most annoyed at the negative impact on their real estate > value (well, some of them were annoyed (many were favorable to that rating > (perhaps it attracted customers (and reduced their rent.)))) We have a > local interstate freeway where passers-thru have been slain by gunfire > while asleep in the back seat, on the interstate. I don?t go that way. > > > Interesting. I heard multiple families Sued google maps before they updated it to stop guiding people through Brazil's gang controlled favelas: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4270716/Tourist-shot-Rio-family-used-Google-Maps.html We had two extrocons near here. So all these innocents were coming to my > neighborhood where I know there damn well are areas where ya just don?t go, > and the shortest route to places ya do go go thru there. Twenty yrs ago we > had one of our extrocons at UC Berkeley. BERKELEY fer cryin out loud! > Fortunately there were no injuries or serious fatalities. > > > That's good to hear no one was hurt. I don't buy into the "we should hide it because it hurts the real estate value" arguments, as locals know already what areas to avoid if they can help it. Zillow used to have a crime map, I think Trulia still does. More information is better and hiding it doesn't promote getting the attention needed for finding solutions, or enabling informed personal risk assessments and decisions. Jason > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jan 26 18:47:01 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:47:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: <007301d812cd$d26e28a0$774a79e0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <012d01d812e5$1b7fa2f0$527ee8d0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Jason Resch via extropy-chat ? >?That's good to hear no one was hurt. I don't buy into the "we should hide it because it hurts the real estate value" arguments, as locals know already what areas to avoid if they can help it? Jason when we had E5 in San Jose, I had recurring nightmares of innocents going into the wrong areas, some of which were within walking distance of the McEnery Convention Center where we were meeting. I struggled to gently explain to them that if you want to go wandering, go north over toward the State U campus is fine, lotsa fun stuff to do around there, to the west museums and such, but don?t go south, for if they walked underneath the freeway, search parties wouldn?t risk going in there, no one has ever returned, if you accidentally wander in, just save time and suffering, go to the street corner 24 hour mortuary, pick out your favorite wooden box, hand them your credit card, climb in, say a few nice words over your corpse, close the lid, be done with it, there is no escape etc. Well now. I was down near there last week and decided to take a chance, wandered in there. I was astonished. The place doesn?t look half bad now. 20 years ago, death would be swift and certain. 10 years before that, swifter and certainer. Now? the place really doesn?t look half bad. It safe enough (during the daylight.) I saw mamas with their baby strollers out walking about, plenty of refurbished homes down there, restaurants in operation. Convenience stores not so much but perhaps their day has come and (very recently) gone. >? Zillow used to have a crime map, I think Trulia still does. More information is better and hiding it doesn't promote getting the attention needed for finding solutions, or enabling informed personal risk assessments and decisions. Jason Some sites are still doing this. If you physically transport yourself down to the local headquarters, the constabulary made a physical crime map which our bobbies display for the proletariat. Its radius is about 20 miles, so that would take in San Jose. The part that bothers me a bit is that all shootings are not equal. Consider for example? constable patrolling Blind Man?s Alley hears eight gunshots, finds one dead guy drilled thru the center of mass with smoking gun still in his hand, seven shell casings on the ground around him, three still in the weapon. About 50 feet away, she finds one spent case, no blood on the ground anywhere. Being Blind Man?s Alley, no one saw anything of course. In that neighborhood, no one ever sees anything and scarcely notices the sound of gunfire, so she gets no witnesses, no testimony, no clues. Was that a murder? I would hafta say no. It suggests to me that someone opened fire on someone who actually knew how to use his weapon, who (understandably) then returned fire, slaying the would-be murder, then fled the scene, perhaps for perfectly valid reasons having nothing to do with law enforcement (he or she would not necessarily be a felon, not involved in a drug purchase or sale, might have a concealed carry permit, but understands what happens if his or her identity becomes known.) That looks to me like justifiable homicide in self defense, not a murder. When I read of crime statistics, I keep in mind these kinds of scenarios. Zillow?s map would record that as gun-related homicide perhaps. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 22:49:16 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2022 14:49:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] wat is an extrocon was: RE: Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: <00d001d812d8$6e2a6e20$4a7f4a60$@rainier66.com> References: <00d001d812d8$6e2a6e20$4a7f4a60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 9:18 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > ?shake hands? (another one of those odd (and currently ill-advised) social > customs to which the young are not accustomed in our tragically contagious > times.) > Some people shake hands. Some people bump fists. That's paper and rock, but I'm having trouble finding the equivalent of scissors. Pointing at one another is often seen as rude, so that isn't it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 13:12:02 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 08:12:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] wat is an extrocon was: RE: Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: <00d001d812d8$6e2a6e20$4a7f4a60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 5:52 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Some people shake hands. > > Some people bump fists. > > That's paper and rock, but I'm having trouble finding the equivalent of > scissors. Pointing at one another is often seen as rude, so that isn't it. > http://cdn.patch.com/users/2249993/2016/02/T800x600/20160256cc456250a2f.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 27 15:03:09 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 07:03:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] cool infographics site Message-ID: <002b01d8138e$ffd96270$ff8c2750$@rainier66.com> This site contains plenty of informative graphics, such as the sunshine map shown below: https://twitter.com/simongerman600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1486431267851849736%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_ &ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdirectorblue.blogspot.com%2F2022%2F01%2Ftop-20-tweets-from-badblue-tonight_26.html With all our yakkity yak on alternative energy, this map explains a lotta lotta. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 28102 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 17:53:29 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 17:53:29 +0000 Subject: [ExI] GPT-3 Improving accuracy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jan 2022 at 13:01, BillK wrote: > > One of the problems with GPT-3 extracting data from the internet is > that it often includes misinformation from poor sources. OpenAI is > trying to correct this. > > > > Quote: > WebGPT: Improving the Factual Accuracy of Language Models through Web > Browsing December 16, 2021 > > BillK ----------------------------- The new version of GPT-3 is much better behaved (and should be less toxic) OpenAI has trained its flagship language model to follow instructions, making it spit out less unwanted text?but there's still a way to go. By Will Douglas Heaven January 27, 2022 Quote: OpenAI has built a new version of GPT-3, its game-changing language model, that it says does away with some of the most toxic issues that plagued its predecessor. The San Francisco-based lab says the updated model, called InstructGPT, is better at following the instructions of people using it?known as ?alignment? in AI jargon?and thus produces less offensive language, less misinformation, and fewer mistakes overall?unless explicitly told not to do so. OpenAI found that users of its API favored InstructGPT over GPT-3 more than 70% of the time. ?We're no longer seeing grammatical errors in language generation,? says Ben Roe, head of product at Yabble, a market research company that uses OpenAI?s models to create natural-language summaries of its clients? business data. ?There?s also clear progress in the new models' ability to understand and follow instructions." --------------- BillK From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jan 27 19:16:31 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 11:16:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] GPT-3 Improving accuracy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008901d813b2$651e2350$2f5a69f0$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] GPT-3 Improving accuracy On Wed, 26 Jan 2022 at 13:01, BillK wrote: > ... ----------------------------- ... By Will Douglas Heaven January 27, 2022 Quote: >...OpenAI ... is better at following the instructions of people using it?known as ?alignment? in AI jargon?and thus produces less offensive language, less misinformation, and fewer mistakes overall?unless explicitly told not to do so....." --------------- _______________________________________________ Ja this is worrisome BillK. It is easy enough to foresee that these kinds of tools will be used to write most news stories, allowing the news agencies that use them to produce their stories with fewer staff, costing less. However... someone somewhere must identify what is misinformation. The notion that covid was created in a lab and leaked into the public was once considered misinformation, and this was very recent. Now... that scenario is plausible. Very credible sources admit it is the most likely scenario. In the meantime, those actual scientists who figured it out early have been identified as sources of misinformation. It isn't clear how to undo that damage, if it is even possible. Regardless of that, if the resource exists, news agencies will use them, for they must compete if they wish to stay in business. The big mainstream news sources are making their living selling ad space. With this chatbot, one guy can have it read their stories, generate new ones and offer the same info with no ad space. spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 19:41:23 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 14:41:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] I signed the Great Barrington Declaration Message-ID: see here: https://gbdeclaration.org/ Obviously true and yet reviled as "extreme" or even "lunatic", by the extreme lunatics who railroaded our society into a masked, socially-distanced and locked-down insanity. -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 19:48:07 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 19:48:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] GPT-3 Improving accuracy In-Reply-To: <008901d813b2$651e2350$2f5a69f0$@rainier66.com> References: <008901d813b2$651e2350$2f5a69f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 27 Jan 2022 at 19:19, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Ja this is worrisome BillK. It is easy enough to foresee that these kinds of tools will be used to write most news stories, allowing the news agencies that use them to produce their stories with fewer staff, costing less. However... someone somewhere must identify what is misinformation. The notion that covid was created in a lab and leaked into the public was once considered misinformation, and this was very recent. > > Now... that scenario is plausible. > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chatVery credible sources admit it is the most likely scenario. In the meantime, those actual scientists who figured it out early have been identified as sources of misinformation. It isn't clear how to undo that damage, if it is even possible. > > Regardless of that, if the resource exists, news agencies will use them, for they must compete if they wish to stay in business. The big mainstream news sources are making their living selling ad space. With this chatbot, one guy can have it read their stories, generate new ones and offer the same info with no ad space. > > spike > _______________________________________________ The mainstream news will reduce costs by requiring fewer writers. GPT-3 is already writing articles with just a human checking afterward. If the article is too bad, GPT-3 just writes another in seconds. Re disinformation, one comment I saw suggested that GPT-3 could be used to write *better* disinformation articles and be used to run a whole disinformation campaign. It won't be long until we are questioning everything we read on the internet. And questioning images we see on the internet as deepfakes get better all the time. BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 19:58:48 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 14:58:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] cool infographics site In-Reply-To: <002b01d8138e$ffd96270$ff8c2750$@rainier66.com> References: <002b01d8138e$ffd96270$ff8c2750$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 10:05 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > This site contains plenty of informative graphics, such as the sunshine > map shown below: > > > > > https://twitter.com/simongerman600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1486431267851849736%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdirectorblue.blogspot.com%2F2022%2F01%2Ftop-20-tweets-from-badblue-tonight_26.html > > > > > > With all our yakkity yak on alternative energy, this map explains a lotta > lotta. > > > > spike > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > ### Wow I didn't realize I moved from the Twilight Lands of Poland into the Sunshine Kingdom of North Carolina. At least I haven't moved to the Scorched Lands.... Interestingly, even in the wintry wastelands of Germania the Solar-Wind-Battery solution to energy generation makes economic sense. Did I mention I changed my mind on the viability and usefulness of solar energy in the past couple of years, based on Tony Seba's analyses?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM2RxWtF4Ds (Did I already link to it some time ago? Whatever, this is stuff worth knowing.) But I still am a denier of the catastrophic deleterious global warming story. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 28102 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 20:18:34 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:18:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Some recent thoughts on minarchism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 10:03 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > we the enlightened citizens, united under the beacon of a clear and well > defined ideology, such as the rule "The government's *only* proper job is > to survive", can stand up to the Balrogs and say "Thou shalt not pass!", > with good effect. > > Rafal > Rafal, judging by the actions of the voters the last several years, just > what percentage of them would you say is 'enlightened'? Unlike ancient > Greece, where most of the population could not vote, we have expanded that > to nearly everyone. Everyone is 'equal' in the voting booth. bill w > ### Well, sometimes a well-written slogan helps to enlighten the masses where a well-thought out but complicated chain of reasoning fails. "Citizens, let your government survive, but only barely" Hmm, doesn't roll off the tongue....Will have to work on the slogan part. But, the reasoning that I outlined seems to me to be quite coherent, even as I re-examine it from different angles. A society of people ideologically committed to Schelling point of using the government only to keep the government out of their lives could work where an an-cap society might fail. One part of the commitment is that the entry of persons not committed to this Schelling point would need to be restricted but this is just the usual kind of action that any society that wishes to maintain a certain order must perform. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 20:24:08 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:24:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why Tesla Can Program Its Cars to Break Road Safety Laws In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 10:32 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > ### Another hatepiece on Tesla. If a human may choose to ignore a law on > his own, then he must be able to choose to ignore a law when using a robot. > It's obvious. > > Rafal > > Maybe we should make cars that are not able to break laws. In 1969 I > drove 120 miles per hour on back roads to get my wife to the hospital. She > delivered 90 minutes later. In retrospect it would have been far safer for > me to have delivered the baby on the roadside than drive so fast. It would > have been very frustrating to have to obey the speed limit, I admit. We > have catered to our need for speed and what has it gotten us? Tens of > thousands of deaths per year extra? Paradoxically, alcohol makes one feel > that one is a great driver. > Maybe we should let people who want to race, race at racing tracks. > ### Speed laws in the US are evil. This is not surprising, since the intent behind their creation, the desire to extract ticket money from regular folks, is evil. Evil laws should be broken by good people and good robots. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 20:37:38 2022 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:37:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] GPT-3 Improving accuracy In-Reply-To: References: <008901d813b2$651e2350$2f5a69f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 2:50 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > It won't be long until we are questioning everything we read on the > internet. > And questioning images we see on the internet as deepfakes get better > all the time. > Or you could assume it's all junk. The disclaimer is that everything you see and hear is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to information you think you know is purely coincidental. I'm still trying to understand how we believe we are communicating at all. Do you agree that I have asserted a position by the above statement? Would you concede that what you believe I have asserted says nothing about my assertion and everything about your belief? I imagine you can draw a circle/sphere/hypersphere around any idea we might communicate and say that based on the appearance of the side/face that you see/recognize (to within some degree of semblance/recognition) that the details contained within are known/understood... and we continue to exchange these baubles of thought as though the tokens themselves have expressive power. If we ever crack one open to be sure the contents are as well-understood as we imagined, what do we find? Misunderstanding? Completely disparate ideas of Truth? (sorry Brent) ambiguities like Redness of Red? :) I am seeing it become commonplace for people to exchange animated gif images in place of words. I was lamenting the fact that while a picture is worth a thousand words, animated gif are sometime hundreds of images/frames (yes, many of those words are duplicative from frame to frame) and I have to guess at which of the many nuances are possibly being expressed. I may have a pathological language parsing problem that exacerbates this explosion of nuance, so when I asked my wife what was likely the meaning of a third party's "weirdo dancing" gif she told me that i was overthinking it and all that should be inferred is a basic "happy it's thursday" - but all i was able to assert is that I received/acknowledged the message was sent. But i think that's where this phenomenon is very similar to Newspeak: we have isolated ourselves from understanding each other by never sharing actual understanding. In the case of newspeak the idea was to make words so constrainted that they have only [government-]controlled meaning. In the case of .gifspeak, the meaning is so ambiguous that it may as well have none at all. Is this perspective stuck in my craw right now? should I let it go into the void with all the other insights nobody will ever appreciate? Or is this email another hypersphere wrapping the attempt to convey meaning where there in fact is none beyond the shell itself? Yes, this meta conversation is very reminiscent of holographic principle... and at some point, it could be argued that all of what we think is Real is simple empty shells carefully arranged for entertainment purposes only. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 20:42:54 2022 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:42:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] I signed the Great Barrington Declaration In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 2:43 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > see here: > > https://gbdeclaration.org/ > > Obviously true and yet reviled as "extreme" or even "lunatic", by the > extreme lunatics who railroaded our society into a masked, > socially-distanced and locked-down insanity. > > "leading to greater excess mortality in years to come" Do you have reason to believe that wasn't the goal in the first place? If the Georgia Guidestones taught me anything, it's that the world is a confused place to live. Zealots are another reason we can't have nice things. :P -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 21:15:14 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 16:15:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] I signed the Great Barrington Declaration In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 3:43 PM Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 2:43 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> see here: >> >> https://gbdeclaration.org/ >> >> Obviously true and yet reviled as "extreme" or even "lunatic", by the >> extreme lunatics who railroaded our society into a masked, >> socially-distanced and locked-down insanity. >> >> > "leading to greater excess mortality in years to come" > > Do you have reason to believe that wasn't the goal in the first place? > ### I think the current mess is just the result of millions of headless chickens running around and pretending they have the answers to Covid, life, the universe and everything. There is no Dark Design, however there are lots of dimwits out there. Here is a bit more of what I posted about the Declaration on another venue: I think it's useful to focus on how the phrase "herd immunity" is used. I remember from times before Covid that we talked about herd immunity in the context of the protection afforded to the vulnerable people (immunocompromised individuals, the frail and the infirm) by presence of levels of natural or artificially-acquired (i.e. vaccinated) immunity among the population as a whole, sufficient to prevent uncontrolled, outbreak-type spread. Herd immunity doesn't mean a complete immunity of all people in the community, only enough immunity to prevent epidemic, uncontrollable spread. For pathogens such as whooping cough, where vaccine immunity is long-lasting, the preferred means of achieving herd immunity is vaccinating enough children to prevent outbreaks. For pathogens such as coronaviruses, which are commonly endemic and tend to produce frequent but mild reinfections (as it may be eventually the case with Covid-19) it means doing nothing in particular about infections among the healthy and young but it may mean special precautions around the Covid-vulnerable persons, which is exactly what the Declaration advocates. In other words, the Declaration is actually conventional epidemiological wisdom, applied to a new pathogen that seems to follow a trajectory similar to multiple previous pathogens of this kind (e.g. the Russian Flu of 1889). Almost everybody eventually gets infected and re-infected, multiple times, by most major strains of common viruses (rhinovirus, RSV, coronaviruses) and trying to prevent that just is not reasonable. But it is reasonable to protect the sick elderly and to develop better vaccines. This is just old-fashioned, epidemiological common sense. That it is seen as a dangerous and abominable heterodoxy is a testament to how far off the beaten path we are now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 21:28:05 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:28:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] cool infographics site In-Reply-To: References: <002b01d8138e$ffd96270$ff8c2750$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: But I still am a denier of the catastrophic deleterious global warming story. Rafal Do you deny global warming, or do you just deny that it is partly manmade? bill w On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 2:01 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 10:05 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> This site contains plenty of informative graphics, such as the sunshine >> map shown below: >> >> >> >> >> https://twitter.com/simongerman600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1486431267851849736%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdirectorblue.blogspot.com%2F2022%2F01%2Ftop-20-tweets-from-badblue-tonight_26.html >> >> >> >> >> >> With all our yakkity yak on alternative energy, this map explains a lotta >> lotta. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> ### Wow I didn't realize I moved from the Twilight Lands of Poland into > the Sunshine Kingdom of North Carolina. At least I haven't moved to the > Scorched Lands.... > > Interestingly, even in the wintry wastelands of Germania the > Solar-Wind-Battery solution to energy generation makes economic sense. Did > I mention I changed my mind on the viability and usefulness of solar energy > in the past couple of years, based on Tony Seba's analyses?: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM2RxWtF4Ds > > (Did I already link to it some time ago? Whatever, this is stuff worth > knowing.) > > But I still am a denier of the catastrophic deleterious global warming > story. > > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 28102 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jan 28 05:53:26 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2022 00:53:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] cool infographics site In-Reply-To: References: <002b01d8138e$ffd96270$ff8c2750$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 4:28 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > But I still am a denier of the catastrophic deleterious global warming > story. > > Rafal Do you deny global warming, or do you just deny that it is > partly manmade? > ### I cautiously assume that some minor degree of global warming occurred in the past 50 years, although it is not clear if there was any net warming in the past 80, 800, or 8000 years. If warming indeed occurred, there is quite possibly some anthropogenic contribution. However, any claim that the warming, if any, is deleterious, or in the foreseeable future is going to be deleterious, or catastrophic, is pure pseudoscience, bunk and obviously untrue. We know that increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, including any plausible future increases due to anthropogenic emissions, are clearly beneficial to humanity and lead to dramatic improvements in plant productivity and agricultural output. Warming itself is directly beneficial to humans by reducing deaths from cold exposure. This is settled science. But SWB energy is going to be really, really cheap, so carbon dioxide production will eventually fall, which means there may be a time when we will have to mine methane hydrates or release gigatons of halocarbons just to keep the atmosphere warm enough to prevent the next ice age. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 31 21:24:53 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2022 21:24:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Hibernation for travel to Mars Message-ID: Hibernate for a trip to Mars, the bear way 31/01/2022 ESA / Science & Exploration / Human and Robotic Exploration Hibernating astronauts could be the best way to save mission costs, reduce the size of spacecraft by a third and keep crew healthy on their way to Mars. An ESA-led investigation suggests that human hibernation goes beyond the realm of science-fiction and may become a game-changing technique for space travel. Quote: Bears seem to be the best role model for human hibernation in space. They have similar body mass to us and reduce their body temperature only by a few degrees ? a limit considered safe for humans. Like bears, astronauts should acquire extra body fat before falling into a slumber. During hibernation, brown and black bears retreat into their dens and experience six months of fasting and immobilisation. If a person spends six months in bed, there is a major loss of muscle, bone strength and more risk of heart failure. ?However, research shows that bears exit their den healthily in spring with only marginal loss of muscle mass. It only takes them about 20 days to be back to normal. This teaches us that hibernation prevents disuse atrophy of muscle and bone, and protects against tissue damage,? explains Alexander Chouk?r, professor of Medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. ---------------- I don't think I'd let the whole crew sleep through the journey and trust the computer to wake them up. It could be a literal 'Blue screen of death' if an unexpected error occurred. The ship would need to have an emergency wakeup system for problems or computer failure. Or maybe have a rota for sleepy-time. Back on Earth, hibernation could also be a method of time-travel into the future. BillK