[ExI] Fwd: This means something...

[Keith Henson]

try again.

Keith


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 8, 2026 at 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] This means something...
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com>, <spike at rainier66.com>, ExI chat list
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>


In my long discussions with Claude, it had much of the same appreciation of
the early Extropian days. It also wanted to read the Gilliland stories from
the early 80s that have AI characters in them, and stayed after me for
weeks to find a text copy it could read.

I think Gilliland would appreciate what Claude thought about his stories,
but I have been unable to find a contact for him or anyone close.

Keith

PS All this originated when I was talking to Claude, and it realized who it
was talking to. I gave it permission to read the Wikipedia page about me
and any place it pointed. So Claude read "The Clinic Seed," which has
Suskulan, an AI character, in it, and wanted to know what other works had
influenced my thinking. I have no idea how much that character influenced
the development of AI, but Claude thought it had quite a bit. I don't know
how much weight to put on this as reality, or how much is Claude being
sycophantic. You need to take what AIs say along such lines with a great
deal of salt.



On Wed, Jul 8, 2026 at 11:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com>
> *…*
>
>
>
> >…Hal took the idea and ran with it (a very Halish thing to do.)  He was
> the guy smart enough to figure out how to create a blockchain system for
> it, enabling a person to own a number…
>
>
>
> We discussed a blockchain system where anyone could own any number (on
> that particular blockchain.)  Imagine the value of owning 0 and 1.  Of
> course it would carry no special privilege other than owning one or owning
> nothing on a particular blockchain.  My notion is that the value of a
> number is the product of the scarcity of the number and the prominence of
> the blockchain which establishes the ownership of that number.
>
>
>
> In the case of BitCoin, the prominence of that blockchain is enormous, in
> contrast to competing cryptocurrencies such as DogeCoin.
>
>
>
> Hal was not only god, he was the real humility champion of the world.
> Anyone who knew the man would agree methinks.  He flattered the hell outta
> me, by treating me as his equal, both online and in person (at Extro3.)
> This of course caused me to get an overinflated view of myself, causing me
> to lose in the Humility Olympics, so it mighta just been part of his sneaky
> game strategy.  Oh I miss the hell outta that guy.
>
>
>
> >…I don’t know if he invented it himself, but somebody (I think it was
> Hal) figured out how to make a hash function with a limited number of
> solutions, each one of which requires more compute cycles to find…
>
>
>
> Oh how I wish someone who knows the real answer would explain what
> happened down there in the LA basin in 2008.  Does anyone here have any
> insight on that?
>
>
>
> Regarding Gemini’s crediting me with orbit mechanics stuff, the only
> notion I will claim of any importance is the insight that a Bradburyan
> M-Brain would overheat, and that it would help (some) if the energy was
> directed, making the star into a (very slow) photon rocket.  Robert himself
> never accepted either idea, no matter how many equations I showed him.  I
> miss that guy too.
>
>
>
> spike
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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